The Night-Born

It was in the old Alta-Inyo Club—a warm night for San Francisco—andthrough the open windows, hushed and far, came the brawl of the streets. Thetalk had led on from the Graft Prosecution and the latest signs that the town wasto be run wide open, down through all the grotesque sordidness and rottenness ofman-hate and man-meanness, until the name of O'Brien was mentioned—O'Brien, the promising young pugilist who had been killed in the prize-ring thenight before. At once the air had seemed to freshen. O'Brien had been a clean-living young man with ideals. He neither drank, smoked, nor swore, and his hadbeen the body of a beautiful young god. He had even carried his prayer-book tothe ringside. They found it in his coat pocket in the dressing-room... afterward.Here was Youth, clean and wholesome, unsullied—the thing of glory andwonder for men to conjure with..... after it has been lost to them and they haveturned middle-aged. And so well did we conjure, that Romance came and for anhour led us far from the man-city and its snarling roar. Bardwell, in a way,started it by quoting from Thoreau; but it was old Trefethan, bald-headed anddewlapped, who took up the quotation and for the hour to come was romanceincarnate. At first we wondered how many Scotches he had consumed sincedinner, but very soon all that was forgotten.