this concession will be put up at auction. Indeed, if this sale were made an annual event, women bidders would flock to California from all over the world.

A Native Son told me once that he had been given the star-assignment of newspaper history. Somebody offered a prize to the most beautiful daughter of California. And his job was to travel all over the State to inspect the candidates. He said it was a shame to take his pay and I agreed that it was sheer burglary. All I've got to say is that if anybody wants to offer a prize for the handsomest Native Son in California, I'll give my services as judge. I will add that after nearly two years of war-time Europe, in which I have had an opportunity to study some of the best military material of England, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland—the Native Son leads them all. I am inclined to think he is the best physical specimen in the world.

But there is a great deal more to the Native Son than mere comeliness. That long list of nationally-famous Californians proves this in one way, the high average of his citizenship in another. Physically he is a big, strong, high-geared, high-powered racing machine; and he has an inexhaustible supply of energy for motive fluid and an extraordinary degree of initiative and enterprise for driving forces. That initiative and enterprise spring part from his inalienable pep, his vivid interest in life; and part from that constructive looseness of the social structure, which gives them both full play. If the Native Son sees anything he wants to do, he instantly does it. If he sees anything that he wants to get, he promptly takes it. If he sees anything that he wants to be, he immediately is it. He saunters into New York in a degage way and takes the whole city by storm. He strolls through Europe with an insouciant air and finds it almost as good as California. All this, supplemented by his abiding conviction that California must have the most and best and biggest of everything, accounts for what California has done in the sixty-odd years of her existence, accounts for what San Francisco has done in the decade since her great disaster, accounts for that wartime Exposition; perhaps the most elaborate, certainly the most beautiful the world has ever seen.

The Native Son has a strong sense of humor and he invents his own slang. He expresses himself with the picturesqueness of diction inevitable to the West and with much of its sly, dry humor. But there is a joyous quality to the San Francisco blague which sets it apart, even in the West. You find its counterpart only in Paris. Perhaps it is that, being reenforced by wit, it explodes more quickly than the humor of the rest of the country. The Californian with his bulk, his beauty, his boast and his blague descending on New York is very like the native of the Midi who with similar qualities, is always taking Paris by storm. Marseilles, the chief metropolis of the Midi, has a famous promenade—less than half a dozen blocks, packed tight with the peoples and colors and odors of two continents—called the Cannebiere. The Marseillais, returning from his first visit to Paris, remarks with condescending scorn that Paris has no Cannebiere. Of course Paris has her network of Grand Boulevards but—So the Californiac patronizingly discovers that New York has no Market Street, no Golden Gate Park, no Twin Peaks, no Mt. Tamalpais, no seals. Above all—and this is the final thrust—New York is flat.

Somebody ought to invent a serum that renders the victim immune.

Some day medical journals will give the same space to the victims of California hospitality that they now allot to victims of Oriental famines. For with Californians, hospitality is first an instinct, then an art, then a religion and finally a mania. It is utterly impossible to resist it, but it takes a strong constitution to survive. Californians will go to any length or trouble in this matter; their hospitality is all mixed up with their art instinct and their sense of humor. For no matter what graceful tribute they pay to famous visiting aliens, its formality is always leavened by their delicious wit. And no matter how much fun they poke at departing or returning friends, it is always accompanied by some social tribute of great charm and originality.

A loyal Adopted Son of California, a novelist and muckraker, returned a few years ago to the beloved land of his adoption. His arrival was made the occasion of a dinner by his Club. He had come back specifically on a muckraking tour. But it happened that during his absence he had written a series of fiction stories, all revolving about the figure of a middle-aged woman medium. In the midst of the dinner, a fellow clubman disguised as a middle-aged woman medium began to read the future of the guests. She discoursed long and accurately on the personal New York affairs of the returned muckraker. To get such information, the wires between the committee who got up the dinner and his friends in New York must have been kept hot for hours. Moreover, just after midnight, a newsboy arrived with editions of a morning paper of which the whole first page was devoted to him. There were many, highly-colored accounts of all-night revelries; expense accounts, of which every second item was champagne and every fifth bromo-selzer, etc., etc.

Of course but a limited number of papers with this extraneous sheet were printed and those distributed only at the dinner. One, however, was sent to the Eastern magazine which had dispatched our muckraking hero to the Golden Gate. They replied instantly and heatedly by wire to go on with his work, that in spite of the outrageous slander of the opposition, they absolutely trusted him.

This was only one of an endless succession of dinners which dot the social year with their originality.

During the course of the Exposition, the governing officials presented so many engraved placques to California citizens and to visiting notabilities that after a while, the Californians began to josh the system. A certain San Franciscan is famous for much generous and unobtrusive philanthropy. Also his self-evolved translation of the duties of friendship is the last word on that subject. He was visited unexpectedly at his office one day by a group of friends. With much ceremony, they presented him with a placque—an amusing plaster burlesque of the real article. He had the Californian sense of humor and he thoroughly enjoyed the situation. Admitting that the joke was on him, he celebrated according to time-honored rites. After his friends had left, he found on his desk a small uninscribed package which had apparently been left by accident. He opened it. Inside was a beautiful leather box showing his initials in gold. And within the box was a small bronze placque exquisitely engraved by a master-artist... bearing a message of appreciation exquisitely phrased... the names of all his friends. I know of no incident more typical of the taste and the humor with which the Native Son performs every social function. That sense of humor does not lessen but it lightens the gallantry and chivalry which is the earmark of Westerners. It makes for that natural perfection of manners which is also typical of the Native Son.

Touching the matter of their manners... A woman writer I know very well once went to a boxing-match in San Francisco. Women are forbidden to attend such events, so that a special permission had to be obtained for her. She was warned beforehand that the audience might manifest its disapproval in terms both audible and uncomplimentary. She entered the arena in considerable trepidation of spirit. It was an important match—for the lightweight championship of the world. She occupied a ring-side box where, it is likely, everybody saw her. There were ten thousand men in the arena and she was the only woman. But in all the two hours she sat there, she was not once made conscious, by a word or glance in her direction, that anybody had noticed her presence. That I think is a perfect example of perfect mob-manners.

Perhaps that instinct,