ten minutes after one
The big ferry building stood before him . Seeing and hearing nothing , he had been carried through the heart of the business section of San Francisco . He glanced up at the tower clock on top of the ferry building . It was ten minutes after one -- time enough to catch the quarter-past-one boat . That decided him , and without the least idea in the world as to where he was going , he paid ten cents for a ticket , passed through the gate , and was soon speeding across the bay to the pretty city of Oakland . In the same aimless and unwitting fashion , he found himself , an hour later , sitting on the string-piece of the Oakland city wharf and leaning his aching head against a friendly timber . From where he sat he could look down upon the decks of a number of small sailing-craft .