Collis found Charles subtly changed from the first time he had met him, sitting on his trunk at Broadway Wharf. He was still forthright, still ebullient, but as he neared his home territory his forthrightness and ebullience became almost dictatorial. In San Francisco, when Charles made a humorous remark, you could laugh if you felt like it. But here, within thirty miles of Sacramento, it seemed as if an energetic appreciation of Charles Tucker’s wit was mandatory.

‘You see there,’ said Charles, pointing northwards with his cigar to a small and sorry collection of wooden buildings among the trees and the hills. ‘That’s the town of Benicia. Used to be the capital of California, for one year, in ’53. That was a big joke. General Vallejo, your friend Laurence Melford’s buddy, bought all the land around here and established the town, hoping it was going to grow into a city, and that he’d make himself a fortune on land prices. He called the place Benicia after his wife, and if you’d ever seen Mrs Francisca Benicia Carillo Vallejo, you’d know why the whole project flopped. Homely isn’t the word. What is the word, Wang-Pu?’

Wang-Pu sipped his whisky reflectively. ‘The word, Mr Tucker, is horrendous.’

Charles let out one of his barking laughs, and Collis found his own face twisting into a smile. He didn’t particularly want to smile, but until he had felt his way around Charles’s home territory, and established the rules of the home game, he felt that a little sycophancy might take him a long way. It wasn’t that he disliked Charles. Charles was direct, and aggressive, and emotionally honest. Collis couldn’t yet vouch for his commercial integrity. But he felt that he could learn from Charles, and eventually use Charles’s energy for his own particular ambition.

The Wallace S. Martin plied on, and music and pungent tobacco smoke and an occasional breeze-whipped playing card floated across the blue water. Charles, after a heavy breakfast of steak and coddled eggs and whisky, went to lie down for a while, ostensibly for the sake of his digestion, although Collis noticed him pause at the head of the companionway and nod his head to one of the dusty young moth-ladies who stalked the rear saloon. Collis turned away. It wasn’t any of his business how Charles enjoyed himself, and Charles, after all, had been his first and most enthusiastic friend in San Francisco, after Andy Hunt. But Wang-Pu dryly remarked, ‘I would say that Mr Tucker is about to make one of his grand but temporary farewells to the world and all its vices, wouldn’t you, Mr Edmonds?’