From his parlor window in the Argonaut Hotel, Boye Mayer looked down on
the street's swimming length, and then up at the sky's leaden pall. It
was not raining now but there was no knowing when it might begin again.
He yawned and stretched, then looked at his watch--half-past four. What
should he do for the rest of the afternoon?

Several times during the last month this problem of time to be passed
had presented itself. The rain had cut him off from stately promenades
on the sunny side of the street and the diversions of San Francisco had
grown stale from familiarity. The bloom of his adventure was tarnished;
he was becoming used to riches, and comfort had lost its first, fine,
careless rapture. It was not that he was actually bored, but he saw, as
things were going, he might eventually become so, especially if the
rain continued. So far, the green tables and Pancha had held _off_ this
undesired state, but like all attractive pastimes both had their
dangers. His luck at the green tables had been so bad that he had
resolved to give them up, and that made the menace of boredom loom
larger. Life in San Francisco in the height of the wet season, with
cards denied him and Pancha only to be visited occasionally, was not
what it had promised to be.

He had thought of leaving, going to the South, and then decided against
it. There were several reasons why it was better for him to stay. One was
the money in Sacramento. This had become an intruding matter of worry and
indecision. It was not only that the store was so greatly diminished--his
losses had made astonishing inroads in it--but he feared its discovery
and he hated his trips there. He always spent a night in the place, on a
stone-hard bed in a dirty, unaired room, and in his shabby clothes was
forced to patronize cheap eating houses where the fare sickened him. He