the heart of the Latin Quarter, and along upper Montgomery street, there are sufficient individual cafes to keep any explorer after atmospheric epicurism busy for many days. Neither Soho nor Montmartre is plagiarized in these places. They are foreign in tone, but they belong very much to San Francisco. What affectation and posturing there may be in Greenwich Village are not in evidence here. Joy was at times given boisterous expression in the days before the great drought came upon the land. But the eighteenth amendment and its restrictions have not deprived any of these places of their inherent buoyancy, even though they may not be as noisy as Coffee Dan's.

Table d'hote courses are customary not only in the French restaurants but in most of the Italian as well. Some of these places combine or interchange the menus of French, Italian and Swiss chefs, a piquant entree, or shellfish served bordelaise, being followed by a paste like lasagne, spaghetti or tagliarini, or by those geometric ravioli whose delights are in inverse ratio to their square. If you want fare of the realm the dining rooms and grills of the hotels are at your service, as are the restaurants along Market, Powell and other streets. The cafeteria has come northward and the tea-room and the Southern inn westward by way of New York. The typical San Francisco restaurant, however, is an institution as firmly imbedded in the life of the people as is Mile Rock in the current of the Golden Gate.

The sea glamour is upon the dining places of San Francisco. Any impression of them would be lacking without some reference to sea food. Every variety of fish is sold fresh in the markets daily. A number of so-called fish grottos specialize in fish caught the same morning, keeping them swimming in illuminated window-tanks. Crabs, shrimps, oysters, clams and other varieties of shell fish, including the abalone with its rainbow-tinted shell, together with sanddabs, pompano and rex sole, serve to remind one that San Francisco is washed on three sides by tides of the Pacific.

Perhaps when Bret Harte referred to San Francisco as "serene, indifferent of Fate," he was thinking of Sidney Smith's declaration:

"Fate cannot harm me—I have dined today!"

When you think of eating in San Francisco you think of bright lights and dancing. In addition to the hotels, you may dance at innumerable cafes. Influences of Old Spain dowered San Francisco with an infatuation for the fiesta. The city has always been dance-minded. Art Hickman, virtuoso of jazz orchestration, was called to New York to have the Follies on The Roof dance to the exuberant strains he had evolved in San Francisco. Patterns of new dance forms were derived by Pavlowa from the wild rhythms she found on the old Barbary Coast.

The Palais Royal, Marquard's, Tait's-at-the-Beach, the Cliff House—but where is one to stop when he starts to name the San Francisco cafes that attract dance crowds? Let's leave it to the classified lists in the telephone directories.

Hotels

Wives and daughters of the men who awoke to find themselves millionaires in the days of the Argonauts came to San Francisco to explore the social thrills of the newly rich. It is easy to understand why the hotels became the scenes of elaborate gaiety unmatched even in New York, Boston or the older communities. Haunts of the battling giants of the Comstock mines and the railroad magnates, the old Palace, Occidental, Lick and Baldwin hotels reflected their effulgent period.

The Palace, built by William C. Ralston, has survived as a landmark of San Francisco. Like Shepheard's in Cairo, the Palace is one of the gathering places of the traveling world. The present hotel, at Market and New Montgomery streets, occupies the site of the old Palace, whose outer walls remained standing after the fire of 1906 and had to be blasted with dynamite to make room for the new structure—a tribute to the original builders. The Palace retains the outstanding aspects of the old hotel, with added modern appointments. The Palm Court, which has decorative columns and a glass-domed roof, is the social center of the hotel. It is also the rendezvous of the political and business stalwarts of the city, the Palace being a clearing-house for diversified activities. The Rose Bowl, which has Maxfield Parrish's Pied Piper of Hamelin, attracts the set that dances when it dines.

Perched like a Parthenon on Nob Hill, the acropolis of San Francisco, is the Fairmont Hotel commanding a view of the Bay and the Contra Costa hills. Its Venetian Room, its Terrace and its Ball Room are among the features of the Fairmont in keeping with its individual environment. Expansive lawns frame the Renaissance architecture of the building, which seen from the Bay looks like a citadel inside the Golden Gate.

The Hotel St. Francis, fronting Union Square on Powell street, has a thousand rooms and is one of the distinctive institutions of San Francisco. The fire of 1906 damaged the building but left its steel frame and granite sheath intact, and a banquet of business men was held there to celebrate the beginning of reconstruction. When you think of the St. Francis you think of beautiful wall arrangements. Its Garden Court and Fable Room, where La Fontaine's diverting inventions serve as the motifs for murals, attract the younger set for dancing and tea. The Tapestry Room is a distinguished example of decorative treatment.

San Francisco is the greatest hotel city in the world in proportion to population. These pages necessarily skim only the surface of this aspect of the city's life. There are some 2,000 hotels, records of the Hospitality Bureau of the Chamber of Commerce show, each having rates scaled to meet the guests to whom it caters. Representatives of the Hospitality Bureau copy the names of arrivals at the hotels from the registers. These names are classified according to interests and given to a Hospitality Committee made up of business men who personally greet arrivals, bring them to the clubs, and dispense other courtesies.

Shops

It was O. Henry, caliph of phrases, who called San Francisco the Bagdad of the West. In doing so he must have had in mind its profusion of shops which stretch through the city like an endless bazaar.

Midweek shopping crowds in San Francisco are comparable to Saturday afternoon crowds in other American cities. This fact has been commented upon frequently by merchandising specialists, and it has significance.

Street population spells buying power, and San Francisco has larger shopping crowds every day of the year than any other city west of New York. Every day but Sunday is a shopping day.

Constant shopping by San Francisco women gives stimulus to the city's retailers to comb world markets for the newest and most attractive offerings. Buyers are sent by the larger establishments not only to Paris and other style centers, but to all of the larger international trade fairs. Stocks in the shops reflect the enterprise of the retailers, who not only display the latest modes, but frequently create them.

The downtown shopping district spreads from Market to all the streets that radiate from it, from Kearny westward, well above Powell. Market street itself is a continuous stretch of display windows. Grant avenue, Stockton, Powell, O'Farrell, Geary, Post and Sutter streets are lined with department stores and intimate shops.

The Richmond, Mission, Sunset and other out lying districts have their own sub-centers, each crowded six days in the week with shoppers. Otherwise the downtown streets would be congested.

Flower stands splash the street corners with color in the downtown shopping district, and the wares glow in the show windows like exotic blooms