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.

By 185() the firm of Huntington & Hopkins had accumulated what was then, even in California, a handsome fortune. Their house was one of the most solid on the coast; they were known as shrewd, careful and very wide-awake business men ; their rule was to ask a high price for everything, but to sell only a good article -- the best in the market. They avoided all hazardous speculative transactions, and "stuck" to hardware. Mr. Hopkins once told the present writer: " We never owned a dollar of stock in a mine, never had a branch house, never sent out a drummer to get business, and never sued a man for a debt."

But Huntington & Hopkins were not merely or only business men. Both took a lively interest in political questions, though always avoiding what is called politics. They were Free-Soilers and Republicans at a time when the wealth and social influence in the State were mostly on the Democratic side. Naturally, No. 54 K Street presently became a place where leading Republicans met to discuss the news and plan opposition to the Democratic party, and in a small upper-story room in 54 K Street, the Times, the first Republican newspaper of California, was begun, under the editorship of .James McClatchey, one of the ablest publicists in the State, and now editor of the Sacramento Bee.