Dupont Street, now Grant Avenue, began at Bush and carried the Tenderloin over into Chinatown, where old St. Mary’s Church rose from the heart of it, brooding over it all. It was a colorful Tenderloin⁠—loud, drunken, odorous, and stupid from hop. Its bad wine, ill women, and worse song have gone to join the Indian, the buffalo, the roulette wheel, and the faro box. Deeply and securely dug in, it yielded slowly, inch by inch, and with scant grace, to the sledgehammer blows of the militant Father Caraher.

I made a few acquaintances around the dance halls and found my way into the hop joints. Curiosity was my only excuse for my first smoke. It made me very sick, and although I became a smoker after, it was years before I touched the pipe again.

Sanc spent his time in his own way, and there were times when I wouldn’t see him for a week. One night when he appeared at our eating place, he handed me a sheet of paper.