作者：Stewart Edward White 字数：14.3万字

The novel begins: On the verandah of the Bella Union Hotel, San Francisco, a man sat enjoying his morning pipe. The Bella Union overlooked the Plaza of that day, a dusty, unkempt, open space, later to be swept and graded and dignified into Portsmouth Square. The man was at the younger fringe of middle life. He was dressed neatly and carefully in the fashionable costume of the time, which was the year of grace 1852. As to countenance, he was square and solid as to physique, he was the same as to expression, he inclined toward the quietly humorous in general he would strike the observer as deliberately, philosophically competent.

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