Other fashionable women also gambled in stocks, and had their private broker in a "Charley" or a "Jack." Why should not Mrs.
Barker have business with a "Paul" Van Loo, particularly as this fast craze permitted secret meetings ?--for business of this kind could not be conducted in public, and permitted the fair gambler to call at private offices without fear and without reproach.

Mrs.Barker's vanity, Mrs.
Barker's love of ceremony and form, Mrs.Barker's snobbishness, were flattered by the attentions of this polished gentleman with a foreign name, which even had the flavor of nobility, who never picked up her fan and handed it to her without bowing, and always rose when she entered the room.

Mrs.Barker's scant schoolgirl knowledge was touched by this gentleman, who spoke French fluently, and delicately explained to her the libretto of a risky opera bouffe.

And now she had finally yielded to a meeting out of San Francisco--and an ostensible visit--still as a speculator--to one or two mining districts--with HER BROKER.

This was the boldest of her steps--an original idea of the fashionable Van Loo--which, no doubt, in time would become a craze, too.