A great board was laid the length of the room, a kind of Round Table—­with some few unavoidable innovations, such as a weak leg or two, square corners, and an unexpected depression in the centre of it, where the folding leaves sought in vain to join.  From the wall depended the elaborate menu, life-size and larger; and at every course a cartoon in color more appetizing than the town market.  The emblematic owl blinked upon us from above the door.  Invitations were hastily penned and sent forth to a select few.  Forgive us, Dona Jovita, if thy guest card was redolent of tea or of brown soap; for it was penned in the privacy of the pantry, and either upon the Scylla of the tea-caddy or the soapy Charybdis it was sure to be dashed at last.

It was rare fun, if I did say it from the foot of the flower-strewn table, clad in an improvised toga, while a gentleman in Joss-like vestments carved and complimented in a single breath at the top of the Bohemian board.  From the adjoining room came the music of hired minstrels:  the guitar, the violin, and blending voices—­a piping tenor and a soft Spanish falsetto.  They chanted rhythmically to the clatter of tongues, the ripple of laughter, and the clash of miscellaneous cutlery.

An unbidden multitude, gathered from the highways, and the byways, loitered about the vicinity, patiently—­O how patiently!—­awaiting our adjournment.  The fandango naturally followed; and it enlivened the vast, bare chambers of an adjoining adobe, whose walls had not echoed such revelry since the time when Monterey was the chief port of the Northern Pacific, and basked in the sunshine of a prosperous monopoly.  A good portion of the town was there that evening.  Shadowy forms hovered in the arbors of the rose garden; the city band appeared and rendered much pleasing music,—­though it was rendered somewhat too vigorously.  That band was composed of the bone and sinew of the town.  Oft in the daytime had I not heard the flageolet lifting its bird-like voice over the counter of the juvenile jeweller, who wrought cunningly in the shimmering abalone shells during the rests in his music?  Did not the trombone bray from beyond the meadow, where the cooper could not barrel his aspiring soul?  It was the French-horn at the butcher’s, the fife at the grocer’s, the cornet in the chief saloon on the main street; while at the edge of the town, from the soot and grime of the smithy, I heard at intervals the boom of the explosive drum.  It was thus they responded to one another on that melodious shore, and with an ambitious diligence worthy of the Royal Conservatory.