Others (a still worse variety) carried us to neighbouring saloons to dice for cocktails and (after the cocktails were paid) for dollars on a corner of the counter.

The attraction of dice for all these people was indeed extraordinary: at a certain club, where I once dined in the character of "my partner, Mr.Dodd," the dice-box came on the table with the wine, an artless substitute for after-dinner wit.
Of all our visitors, I believe I preferred Emperor Norton; the very mention of whose name reminds me I am doing scanty justice to the folks of San Francisco.

In what other city would a harmless madman who supposed himself emperor of the two Americas have been so fostered and encouraged?
Where else would even the people of the streets have respected the poor soul's illusion?
Where else would bankers and merchants have received his visits, cashed his cheques, and submitted to his small assessments?
Where else would he have been suffered to attend and address the exhibition days of schools and colleges?
where else, in God's green earth, have taken his pick of restaurants, ransacked the bill of fare, and departed scathless?
They tell me he was even an exacting patron, threatening to withdraw his custom when dissatisfied; and I can believe it, for his face wore an expression distinctly gastronomical.

Pinkerton had received from this monarch a cabinet appointment; I have seen the brevet, wondering mainly at the good nature of the printer who had executed the forms, and I think my friend was at the head either of foreign affairs or education: it mattered, indeed, nothing, the presentation being in all offices identical.

It was at a comparatively early date that I saw Jim in the exercise of his public functions.