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Lud was crushed. Baba had told him in Los Angeles that he wanted no publicity or reporters here in San Francisco but more time with his close ones. This had meant rearranging appointments and interviews at the last moment. Now again there were changes!

 

Suddenly Baba turned to Mrs. Frey and said, "lf those people (in the connecting rooms) leave by 1 o'clock tomorrow and the food is good here, I'll stay."

 

The news traveled fast and we ate our lunch downstairs with bated breath. Baba liked his lunch (bless the new chef!), and suddenly, joyously, we were summoned upstairs to Baba's temporary quarters. We found him seated on the divan surrounded by a good baker's dozen of children, and looking just like an innocent child himself. Smiling happily, he gestured:

 

"Now that the children have monopolized me the rest of you will have no chance!" He added, "I, too, am a child!"

 

He said he was happy, he liked the food, and he would stay. Our spirits soared at once. He fondled the children and greeted some of his S.F. lovers who had not been with us on the trip. Then he gave the rest of us a quick embrace. He asked Enid Corfe what she was thinking.

 

"I'm thinking that if you take the I out of Enid, that's the end!" she replied. Baba enjoyed this.

 

At 2:30 we got into the bus for a scheduled sightseeing tour. Baba was in the station wagon with Dr. Nilu, Ivy Duce, Adi K. Irani, and several children; Lud drove. All during the trip "Baba kept pulling children in and out of the car," recalls Ivy, so all of them had a chance to ride with him. She tells us Baba was so amused when Dr. Nilu was shaken out of his usual Buddha-like calm, by the pitched ride down the steepest street in the world.

 

Chinatown—Fisherman's Wharf—Telegraph Hill; then we all disembarked at Coit Tower, with its fabulous view of the harbor. Next, we went to the Presidio gardens. Suddenly Baba turned to Lud, and signaled he must return to the hotel by 4 p.m. It was then 3:45. Lud wondered how he could relay this message to the bus and to Harb's car; both were to meet him at the Presidio. Baba then told him to find the bus! How pondered Lud, could he possibly obey both orders—to find the bus, and to

 

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