Again Chance was playing the deuce with his calculations. For a few
minutes he felt uncommonly irritated. He had not started for San
Francisco. He did not want to go to San Francisco. Still--what was the
odds? San Francisco was as good as any other town. He shrugged his
shoulders, and feeling his way to a coiled hawser sat down in the bight
of it to contend with the first, faint touch of seasickness.
CHAPTER XV
THE WORLD IS SMALL
For reasons of economy Thompson put himself up at a cheap rooming-house
well out Market Street. His window looked out upon that thoroughfare
which is to San Francisco what the aorta is to the arterial system.
Gazing down from a height of four stories he could see a never-ending
stir, hear the roar of vehicular traffic which swelled from a midnight
murmur to a deep-mouthed roar in the daylight hours. And on either side
the traffic lane there swept a stream of people like the current of the
Stikine River.
He was not a stranger to cities, no rustic gazing open-mouthed at
throngs and tall buildings. His native city of Toronto was a fair-sized
place as American and Canadian cities go. But it was not a seaport. It
was insular rather than cosmopolitan; it took its character from its
locale rather than from a population gathered from the four quarters of
the globe.
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