CONTENTS

I. Preface

II. How Danny, home from the wars, found himself an heir, and how he swore to protect the help less.

III. How Pilon was lured by greed of position to forsake Danny’s hospitality.

IV. How the poison of possessions wrought with Pilon, and how evil temporarily triumphed in him.

V. How Jesus Maria Corcoran, a good man, became an unwilling vehicle of evil.

VI. How Saint Francis turned the tide and put a gentle punishment on Pilon and Pablo and Jesus Maria.

VII. How three sinful men, through contrition, attained peace. How Danny’s Friends swore comradeship.

VIII. How Danny’s Friends became a force for good. How they succored the poor Pirate.

IX. How Danny’s Friends sought mystic treasure on Saint Andrew’s Eve. How Pilon found it and later how a pair of serge trousers changed ownership twice.

X. How Danny was ensnared by a vacuum cleaner and how Danny’s Friends rescued him.

XI. How the Friends solaced a Corporal and in return received a lesson in paternal ethics.

XII. How, under the most adverse circumstances, love came to Big Joe Portagee.

XIII. How Danny’s Friends assisted the Pirate to keep a vow, and how as a reward for merit the Pirate’s dogs saw a holy vision.

XIV. How Danny’s Friends threw themselves to the aid of a distressed lady.

XV. Of the good life at Danny’s House, of a gift pig, of the pain of Tall Bob, and of the thwarted love of the Viejo Ravanno.

XVI. How Danny brooded and became mad. How the devil in the shape of Torrelli assaulted Danny’s House.

XVII. Of the sadness of Danny. How through sacrifice Danny’s Friends gave a party. How Danny was Translated.

XVIII. How Danny’s sorrowing Friends defied the conventions. How the Talismanic Bond was burned. How each Friend departed alone.

PREFACE

THIS is the story of Danny and of Danny’s friends and of Danny’s house. It is a story of how these three became one thing, so that in Tortilla Flat if you speak of Danny’s house you do not mean a structure of wood flaked with old whitewash, overgrown with an ancient untrimmed rose of Castile. No, when you speak of Danny’s house you are understood to mean a unit of which the parts are men, from which came sweetness and joy, philanthropy and, in the end, a mystic sorrow. For Danny’s house was not unlike the Round Table, and Danny’s friends were not unlike the knights of it. And this is the story of how that group came into being, of how it flourished and grew to be an organization beautiful and wise. This story deals with the adventuring of Danny’s friends, with the good they did, with their thoughts and their endeavors. In the end, this story tells how the talisman was lost and how the group disintegrated.

In Monterey, that old city on the coast of California, these things are well known, and they are repeated and sometimes elaborated. It is well that this cycle be put down on paper so that in a future time scholars, hearing the legends, may not say as they say of Arthur and of Roland and of Robin Hood—“There was no Danny nor any group of Danny’s friends, nor any house. Danny is a nature god and his friends primitive symbols of the wind, the sky, the sun.” This history is designed now and ever to keep the sneers from the lips of sour scholars.

Monterey sits on the slope of a hill, with a blue bay below it and with a forest of tall dark pine trees at its back. The lower parts of the town are inhabited by Americans, Italians, catchers and canners of fish. But on the hill where [2] the forest and the town intermingle, where the streets are innocent of asphalt and the corners free of street lights, the old inhabitants of Monterey are embattled as the Ancient Britons are embattled in Wales. These are the paisanos.

They live in old wooden houses set in weedy yards, and the pine trees from the forest are about the houses. The paisanos are clean of commercialism, free of the complicated systems of American business, and, having nothing that can be stolen, exploited, or mortgaged, that system has not attacked them very vigorously.

What is a paisano? He is a mixture of Spanish, Indian, Mexican, and assorted Caucasian bloods. His ancestors have lived in California for a hundred or two years. He speaks English with a paisano accent and Spanish with a paisano accent. When questioned concerning his race, he indignantly claims pure Spanish blood and rolls up his