Collis looked around K Street as they drove along. He could have remarked that it appeared, on first sight, to be a great deal more primitive than San Francisco, with the admitted exception of Sydney Town, between Kearny and Sansome north of Broadway, that fearsome collection of sheds and tents and rough saloons that greeted all those who disembarked for the first time in San Francisco. But San Francisco had its brick banks and its iron boardinghouses and its fireproof theatres, as well as its occasional marble frontage and its decorative offices and civic institutions; Sacramento appeared to be constructed very largely out of wood and brown mud.

The largest and most prosperous-looking row of buildings in sight were those along the north side of K Street. In particular, there was a hardware store, No. 54, with a front veranda, and handsome upstairs windows. It was only when they began to draw close, and Leland McCormick slowed the horses, that Collis could see the signs that were hung on the front of the store, in lavish serif script: ‘Tucker & McCormick, Hardware,’ and beneath that, ‘Rubber Hose, Belting, Powder, Fuse, Rope, Blocks, Pitch, Tar & C.’

‘Well,’ said Collis, remaining in his seat in the surrey as Leland climbed down and tied the horses to one of the veranda posts, ‘it seems that you have done great things for yourselves.’

Leland almost raised his eyes, but not quite far enough to look Collis straight in the face. ‘We’ve built this up through good practice, prayer, and years of personal industry,’ he said. Then he turned to Charles. ‘You must come upstairs. Jane has been preparing a special dinner for you. She knows how much you like poultry.’

Collis felt as if he had been firmly put in his place. He paused for a moment, feeling the muscles in his cheeks tighten, but then he tossed his half-burned cheroot aside and stepped down to the street. If he wanted to make his fortune in California, then he was going to have to enlist the sympathies of men like Charles and Leland, and their friendship, no matter how they treated him. He followed them past barrels of tar and coils of rope into the shadows of the veranda, and then through the store itself, to the stairs at the back.