Page:California Inter Pocula.djvu/346



CHAPTER XIV.

BUSINESS.

The world  is  full  of  hopeful  analogies,  and  handsome,  dubious  eggs,  called possibilities.

— George Eliot.

Business lines  and  methods  were  not  definitely  de- termined. You might  buy  butter  in  a  hardware  store and drygoods  at  a  liquor  shop.

When Purser  Forbes,  of  the  steamer  California, set out  to  purchase  stores,  he  ransacked  the  place, picking up  here  and  there  what  he  could  find,  paying usually a  dollar  a  pound  for  provisions;  whereupon, becoming somewhat  disheartened,  he  dropped  into  a restaurant,  where,  for  a  mutton  chop,  with  poor  bread, and still  poorer  coffee,  and  no  butter,  he  was  made  to pay  $3  50. Thereupon he  thought  it  must  be  a  great country, and  so  went  on  with  his  purchases.

Business was  conducted  on  high-pressure  principles. On Long  Wharf  there  was  a  candy  shop,  the  owner of which,  after  six  months'  business  failed  for  $100,000. So quickly  after  a  fire  was  building  begun,  that  a  water bucket would  have  to  be  used  before  the  new  timbers were laid.

Since the  days  of  the  Medici,  who  ranked  high among the  class  of  Lombard  money-changers,  the  in- sigfnia of  the  three  o;olden  balls,  derived  from  their armorial bearings,  hang  over  the  entrance  to  the  pawn- broker's shop.

Frenchmen were  the  first  to  raise  the  occupation  of boot-blacking  into  an  art. The cleaning,  and  damp- ening, and plastering,  and  polishing  were  not  done  by