Joshua Norton came to San Francisco with $40,000 and made a fortune. Then he tried to corner the city's rice market, lost everything, and went bankrupt. A year later, in September 1859, he walked into the offices of the San Francisco Bulletin with a proclamation. It announced that he was now Norton I, Emperor of these United States. The editor printed it as a joke. The city decided to play along, for twenty-one years. The words are imagined.