me
hither. It was enough now to be of Callfornia; a new existence dated from the landmg at the wharf in San Francisco.
This peanut-seller may have been a doctor, judge, drayman, or printer before coming here; now he was a business citizen of California's embryo metropolis. His business was a good one; nay more, it was large and profitable. There was no such thing as a small business in those daj's; scarcely such a thing as an unprofitable business. One might lose by fire or speculation, but every well-managed legitimate business was very remunerative. Even peanuts paid. At a dollar a cup-full when one roasted them one's self, and passed them out lively, one could easily afford to dress fairly and board at a fis-e-dollar-a-day hotel as our friend did.
The peanut-merchant made many friends. He seemed as much at home in tbe best society as in the worst; he was well informed up(Hi all the leading topics of the day, read the news from all parts of the world on the arrival of every steamer, and was at home in conversation equally with the lawyer, mechanic, or petty politician. It seemed never to occur to him, it scarcely seemed to occur to others, that there w^as anything about his calling low or humiliating. Ho had come to California, as had all the rest, to make money; and like a wise man he engaged in that which offered the most flattering inducements. Vanderbilt himself could not have found a more lucrative occupation with so small an outlay and risk.
But the peanut peddler was not without his quiet ambition. His traffic had taken him many times a day to the little court-house opposite the plaza, and he was upon the most easy terms with the alcalde, clerk, and constable, besides the lawyers and hangerson about the place. Being a man of intelligent observation, he had noticed how the increasing business crowded upon the ancient and yet unawakened magistrate of Spanish associations, and that although the
