One thing remains to be said : he retained his early New England habits; he did not drink, nor smoke nor gamble; he slept in his store, and was up and at work before the earliest of his clerks. He was scrupulously honest, and to use a phrase current in those days in Calfornia, he "did not allow anybody to run over him." The miscellaneous business, begun in a tent, grew by-and-by into a permanent hardware store at 54 K Street, in Sacramento, where Huntington sold all kinds of miners' supplies. Next-door to him Mark Hoi)kins kept store also, until one day he

sold out and thought he would retire. The two men had become acquainted. Hopkins, from the hill country of Massachusetts, and Huntington, from the neighboring parts of Connecticut, found they had many ideas in common, political and religious, as well as business ideas; and naturally, in that new country, they became friends and, before long, partners in business, constituting the firm of Huntington & Hopkins. " He was the truest man I ever knew," said Mr. Huntington of his old partner, a few years ago; "he had the clearest head in California; but for the mere work of buying and selling goods in those early days he was no better than a child. He had no taste for it, and left it to me; but there were many things of greater importance than mere buying and selling which Mark Hopkins could do far better than any of us." The two partners never had even the ripple of a disagreement in all their many years of close business and social intimacy. They were friends in the truest and deepest sense, and this friendship has been among the pleasantest and most important of the influences which made up Huntington's life.