massive head, receding forehead, and heavy cerebral development, full sensual lips, large nose, and peculiar eyes that seemed at the same time to look through you and to shrink from your gaze—­he was a man at whom a stranger would stop in the street to get a second gaze.  There he sat at his desk, too much absorbed to notice my entrance.  Before him lay a large pile of one-thousand-dollar United States Government bonds, and he was clipping off the coupons.  That face! it was a study as he sat using the big pair of scissors.  A hungry boy in the act of taking into his mouth a ripe cherry, a mother gazing down into the face of her pretty sleeping child, a lover looking into the eyes of his charmer, are but faint figures by which to express the intense pleasure he felt in his work.  But there was also a feline element in his joy—­his handling of those bonds was somewhat like a cat toying with its prey.  When at length he raised his head, there was a fierce gleam in his eye and a flush in his face.  I had come upon a devotee engaged in worship.  This was Mike Reese, the miser and millionaire.  Placing his huge left-hand on the pile of bonds, he gruffly returned my salutation,

“Good morning.”

He turned as he spoke, and east a look of scrutiny into my face which said plain enough that he wanted me to make known my business with him at once.

I told him what was wanted.  At the request of the official board of the Minna-street Church I had come to ask him to make a contribution toward the payment of its debt.

“O yes; I was expecting you.  They all come to me.  Father Gallagher, of the Catholic Church, Dr. Wyatt, of the Episcopal Church, and all the others, have been here.  I feel friendly to the Churches, and I treat all alike—­it won’t do for me to be partial—­I don’t give to any!”

That last clause was an anticlimax, dashing my hopes rudely; but I saw he meant it, and left.  I never heard of his departing from the rule of strict impartiality he had laid down for himself.

We met at times at a restaurant on Clay street.  He was a hearty feeder, and it was amusing to see how skillfully in the choice of dishes and the thoroughness with which he emptied them he could combine economy with plenty.  On several of these occasions, when we chanced to sit at the same table, I proposed to pay for both of us, and he quickly assented, his hard, heavy features lighting up with undisguised pleasure at the suggestion, as he shambled out of the room amid the smiles of the company present, most of whom knew him as a millionaire, and me as a Methodist preacher.

He had one affair of the heart.  Cupid played a prank on him that was the occasion of much merriment in the San Francisco newspapers, and of much grief to him.  A widow was his enslaver and tormentor—­the old story.  She sued him for breach of promise of marriage.  The trial made great fun for the lawyers, reporters, and the amused public generally; but it was no fun for him.  He was mulcted for six thousand dollars and costs of the suit.  It was during the time I was renting one of his offices on Washington street.  I called to see him, wishing to have some repairs made.  His clerk met me in the narrow hall, and there was a mischievous twinkle in his eye as he said: