trong arm of the law.

The next day he entered the washhouse of Chy Fook as an assistant, and
on the following Friday was sent with a basket of clean clothes to Chy
Fook's several clients.

It was the usual foggy afternoon as he climbed the long windswept hill
of California Street--one of those bleak, gray intervals that made the
summer a misnomer to any but the liveliest San Franciscan fancy. There
was no warmth or color in earth or sky, no light nor shade within or
without, only one monotonous, universal neutral tint over everything.
There was a fierce unrest in the wind-whipped streets: there was a
dreary vacant quiet in the gray houses. When Ah Fe reached the top of
the hill, the Mission Ridge was already hidden, and the chill sea
breeze made him shiver. As he put down his basket to rest himself, it
is possible that, to his defective intelligence and heathen experience,
this "God's own climate," as was called, seemed to possess but
scant tenderness, softness, or mercy. But it is possible that Ah
Fe illogically confounded this season with his old persecutors, the
schoolchildren, who, being released from studious confinement, at this
hour were generally most aggressive. So he hastened on, and turning a
corner, at last stopped before a small house.

It was the usual San Franciscan urban cottage. There was the little
strip of cold green shrubbery before it; the chilly, bare veranda, and
above this, again, the grim balcony, on which no one sat. Ah Fe rang
the bell. A servant appeared, glanced at his basket, and reluctantly
admitted him, as if he were some necessary domestic animal. Ah Fe
silently mounted the stairs, and entering the open door of the front
chamber, put down the basket and stood passively on the threshold.

A woman, who was sitting in the cold gray light of the window, with a
child in her lap, rose listlessly, and came toward him. Ah Fe instantly
recognized Mrs. Tretherick; but not a muscle of his immobile face
changed, nor did his slant eyes lighten as he met her own placidly. She
evidently did not recognize him as she began to count the clothes. But
the child, curiously examining him, suddenly uttered a short, glad cry.

"Why, it's John, Mamma! It's our old John what we had in Fiddletown."

For an instant Ah Fe's eyes and teeth electrically lightened. The child
clapped her hands, and caught at his blouse. Then he said shortly: "Me
John--Ah Fe--allee same. Me know you. How do?"

Mrs. Tretherick dro