Why I Became a Detective

by Hugh Humphrey

“Pi’ ap’—cookin’ ap’—eatin’ ap’—’ere tha go!”  

“Tins-ter-men-d!” 

“Rag-s! bottles! sacks and bag-s!”  

Perdition! how those abominable street hawkers did torment me that afternoon. I was convalescent, just recovering from a dangerous fever. My room was in a two-story building in one of those courts that lead off from Folsom street—a front room in the second story. The day was hot and sultry, that is, for San Francisco, although the thermometer did not range above seventy-five degrees. And there, through the long day I sat and listened to the cries of apple-peddlers, tinkers, junk men, fish-peddlers, wandering glaziers, etc. Occasionally there was an interlude of dog-fighting, or a trial at fisticuffs among the street Arabs that frequented the narrow side-walks of Broughton Court.  

How I longed to escape from the interminable din and confusion, and get me out into the quiet suburbs, or across the bay to the cooling oaks of Alameda—but the fiat of my uncompromising physician was, to not leave my room for three days yet, and I must obey.  

“Pi’ ap—cookin’ ap—ere tha go!”  

A burst of wonderful melody broke in upon the discordant cry of the apple vender. It came from the open window of a house on the opposite side of the court—a house somewhat more pretentious in appearance than the rest of its neighbors. The wonderful notes floated out and silenced for a time the discordant voices below, the before mentioned tinkers, fishmen, and junk dealers. Even two pugnacious looking canines, who but a minute before stood eyeing each other with bristling hair, stopped for a moment and then, wagging their tails good-naturedly, trotted down the court together in an exceedingly amiable and good-doggish… Read More