Andrew took out a silver snuffbox and flicked the lid with long, clawlike fingernails. ‘The only financial position worth adopting is bent over double under the weight of a sack of gold dust. That’s in my opinion, anyway. But you’re a gentleman, ain’t you, and you shouldn’t have no trouble in making your way, not unless you’re especially green. If you can get yourself introduced into society, and accepted as an aristocrat, whether you’re genuine or fraudulent, then you should be able to pick whatever position you want.’

The Virginia was paddling out into open ocean now, and beginning to tilt and sway. Seagulls followed her into the Atlantic, circling silently around her wake. Andrew, shielding his snuffbox from the breeze, took out a pinch of snuff and dipped it into his sharp-pointed nose. He snorted once, and then took out a large clean white handkerchief and sneezed into it six or seven times.

‘Confounded damned habit,’ he complained, tucking the handkerchief away again, up his sleeve. ‘Still, I guess it’s more sociable than chewing tobacco. All that nyoing, nyoing, p-too.’

‘Tell me more about the Chivalry,’ Collis said. ‘Who’s the most influential man in town?’

Andrew grimaced. ‘It might have changed since I was last there, but I guess the richest man in town is John Parrott, who owns the New Almaden Quicksilver Mine. He and Mrs Parrott live up on Rincon Hill in a place that looks like a bank vault that someone stuck a front porch on and decided to live in. But I guess that when it comes to influence, Laurence Melford’s your man.’

‘Laurence Melford? Don’t I know that name?’

‘You should do,’ said Andrew. ‘He’s what you call your living legend.’

‘Didn’t he help General Kearny to form the first California government?’

‘That’s right.’ Andrew nodded. ‘And John Frémont has never forgiven him for it, although these days they’re back on speaking terms. Still, you can’t hardly blame a man for understanding which side his bread’s buttered, now can you, and that’s always been Laurence Melford’s main talent.’

‘Melford made his fortune in beef, didn’t he?’ Collis asked. ‘I remember my father talking about him.’

‘Beef, whisky, gold, you name it, he’s made his fortune in it. He was only a raggedy-assed settler to start with, back in the ’40s, but he was clever enough to make a friend out of General Vallejo, who was in charge of Northern California in those days, and Vallejo paid him back for his friendship by giving him land, and livestock, and enough sweet wine to drown a boatful of bishops. That was way back when San Francisco was still called Yerba Buena, and it wasn’t no more than a row of adobe huts and a post stuck in the ground to tie up your donkey.’

Andrew paused, sneezed hard, and then turned back to Collis with an oddly surprised expression.

‘I’ll be damned if that stuff isn’t overdoing itself.’