The Days of a Man 



D88o 



The Occi- 

 dental 

 Hotel and 

 Major 

 Hooper 



Stevenson 



Our work on the Coast centered naturally in San 

 Francisco. There, through the courtesy of Louis 

 Sloss, the worthy head of the Alaska Commercial 

 Company, we had a workroom at 320 Sansome 

 Street, our office being meanwhile near by on Mont- 

 gomery in the old Occidental Hotel. This hostelry, 

 the oldest "first class" one in town, maintained an 

 enviable reputation for hospitality long after it was 

 left in the shade by finer and newer edifices. Major 

 Hooper, the proprietor, had always a keen eye to 

 the comfort of his guests. A vase of flowers, or a 

 plate of fine fruit, or both were at hand whenever 

 they would be appreciated. A guest from Kentucky 

 never failed to find a flat bottle where it would do 

 the most good. Leaving for the Orient by boat 

 or starting north, south, or east by rail, one was 

 sure to have a generous basket handed out at the 

 last moment. With the death of the Major and the 

 subsequent destruction of the house in the fire of 

 1906, a characteristic feature of early days dis- 

 appeared. 



For a time the most gifted man in San Fran- 

 cisco, one "who did much to give our city its 

 cosmopolitan character," had rooms only a few 

 doors away up Bush, near Donadieu's Bush Street 

 Restaurant. Practically nobody then knew much 

 about Robert Louis Stevenson, and I must have 

 passed him indifferently almost every day. He was 

 living (as we now know) in the very depths of 

 depression, financial as well as physical. But I 

 would give a good deal to have met him there, for 



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