ving Oriental stolidity and
weeps out his violent Chinese rages unashamed. Yet even now Mrs. Kitty's
summing up is that Charley is a "queer old thing."

If you start out with a good Chinaman, you will always have good
Chinamen; if you draw a poor one, you will probably be cursed with a
succession of mediocrities. They pass you along from one to another of
the same "family"; and, short of the adoption of false whiskers and a
change of name, you can find no expedient to break the charm. When one
leaves of his own accord, he sends you another boy to take his place.
When he is discharged, he does identically that, although you may not
know it. Down through the list of Gins or Sings or Ungs you slide
comfortably or bump disagreeably according to your good fortune or
deserts.

Another feature to which you must become accustomed is that of the
Unexpected Departure. Everything is going smoothly, and you are engaged
in congratulating yourself. To you appears Ah Sing.

"I go San Flancisco two o'clock tlain," he remarks. And he does.

In vain do you point to the inconvenience of guests, the injustice thus
of leaving you in the lurch; in vain do you threaten detention of wages
due unless he gives you what your servant experience has taught you is a
customary "week's warning." He repeats his remark: and goes. At
two-fifteen another bland and smiling heathen appears at your door. He
may or may not tell you that Ah Sing sent him. Dinner is ready on time.
The household work goes on without a hitch or a tiniest jar.

"Ah Sing say you pay me his money," announces this new heathen.

If you are wise, you abandon your thoughts of fighting the outrage. You
pay over Ah Sing's arrears.

"By the way," you inquire of your new retainer, "what's your name?"

"My name Lum Sing," the newcomer replies.

That is about the way such changes happen. If by chance you are in the
good graces of heathendom, you will be given an involved and fancy
reason for the departure. These generally have to do with the mysterious
movements of relatives.

"My second-uncle, he come on ship to San Flancisco. I got to show him
what to do," explains Ah Sing.

If they like you very much, they tell you they will come back at the end
of a month. They never do, and by the end of the month the new man has
so endeared himself to you that Ah Sing is only a pleasant memory.

The reasons for these sudden departures are two-fold as near as I can
make out. Ah Sing may not