midnight
A week later , at eleven at night , a large audience was crowding out of the Albion Opera House . If you know San Francisco -- the San Francisco of before the fire -- you will remember the Albion . It stood on one of those thoroughfares that slant from the main stem of Market Street near Lotta 's Fountain . That part of the city is of dubious repute ; questionable back walls look down on the alley that leads to the stage door , and after midnight there is much light of electricity and gas and much unholy noise round its darkened bulk . But that is not the Albion 's fault . It did not plant itself in the Tenderloin ; it was the Tenderloin that grew . Since it first opened its doors as a temple of light opera -- fifty cents a seat and a constant change of bill -- its patrons have been , if not fashionable , always respectable .