‘What’s the Hunt humanity test?’ asked Collis, amused.

‘It’s real simple. If a man makes two dumb mistakes for every one thing he gets right, and if he marries a pretty woman, and he don’t hold with James Buchanan for President, then he’s a human being, and that’s all right by me. I guess John Frémont’s managed all of those things, except he’s probably made just a mite too many dumb mistakes.’

‘He doesn’t still live in his Chinese wooden house?’

‘No, sir. He’s got a grand place out on the Bay now, and Jessie put up a glass veranda around it, overlooking the ocean. You’d do yourself well to get in with John and Jessie. If you’re able. In fact, if you’re able, you’d do well to get yourself in with any of The San Francisco Chivalry, because that’s the quickest way to make yourself influential.’

‘What is the Chivalry?’ asked Collis.

‘Mary Bell Gwin is the chief buzzard. She’s the wife of Senator Gwin, and if she says you’re acceptable, then acceptable you are. But there’s Eleanor Martin and Mrs Peter Donahue, too, they’re twin sisters, and then there’s the Parrotts and the Melfords and the Lathams and the Selbys. If you ain’t on any of their invitation lists, then you ain’t Chivalry.’

‘How about you?’ asked Collis. ‘Are you on the invitation lists?’

‘Me? You have to be joking. I wouldn’t even turn up at their goddam breakfasts and balls and picnics and whatnot if you paid me to. They spend more time fretting about their oyster suppers and their eggnog soirées than they do about the things that matter in life.’

‘I see,’ said Collis. ‘And what do you think are the things that matter in life?’

‘Work, and friendship, and outwitting the other fellow whenever you can, on top of all of which is sleeping peaceful.’

Collis laughed. But Andrew said seriously, ‘What are yours?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘What are the things that matter to you?’

Collis looked at him for a moment, opened his mouth, but couldn’t think of anything to say. ‘I’m not sure,’ he told him, after a while. ‘I’ve never thought about it.’

Andrew crossed his legs and raised one bony, suntanned finger. ‘In San Francisco,’ he said, ‘you’d better have your priorities sorted out real straight, because it ain’t the venue for tenderfeet. If you spend so much as a half-minute sitting on your travelling trunk on the Embarcadero, trying to figure out what to do next, then the next thing you know you’re going to be perched on air, because someone’s whipped your trunk out from under you and sold it off as the latest import from the East. It’s a city where dogs eat dogs, and cats eat mice, and merchants sell them all off for sausage meat before they’ve even quit squawking.’

‘I was hoping for some sort of financial position, as a matter of fact,’ said Collis, feeling very Eastern and very uncertain.