The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-08-26

ShOp reputation for prOmptneSS by
lingering about the boarding house every
night for an hour after dinner to learn
what his divinity's movements were TO
be. If she went exploring. so did Fab
Chung, and kept an eve on her. IL grew
more complicated when Caldwell
took 10 shadowing her too. That
gentleman never noticed the China
man, but Fab Chung did not grin so hard
when he looked at Mr. Caldwell, particu-
larry after he had seen Miss pearson
! fasteD a rose IN his button hole
There are some things that change not
neither in America nor China, and the
| heart of the lover is one. Fab Chung
might take the Fourth of July, with fire
crackers and illumiuations to be a kind of
American Feast of the Lanterns'-a
great religious festival, in fact. There he
mistOok. Decidedly.
But Fab Chung was right when he
guessed that the object of his passion
regarded him no more in the light of
lover than she would some old woman
who chose To wear a pigtail and unusual
shoes.
The change in dress Swallowed upon
Miss Pearson's mind the fact that her
Iaundryman' was man, and her manner
toward him became somewhat reserved.
That was good for beginning. He wrote
her letter-she took it for a laundry
list, by the by-in his native tongue, of
course-in which he declared his pas
sion. He knew she could not read il, but
it was an outlet for his feelings.
He got his Irish lodger to address the
envelope. AS it stood she could read the
outside, and he the inside, so that made it
even.
1t was rather a pity that Fab Chung
could not have learned a little more of the
customs of his adopted country earlier
The knowledge might have saved him
from making TWO great mistakes.
The first lay in the fact that he had not
curtained his laundry window.
Strolling down the Bowery one bright
afternoon ana enjoying to the full the
rush and roar of life in that Broadway OF
the lower class, "Gothamites," Miss
Pearson was amusing herself by counting
the different nationaities represented in
the shops and so on. Between two turn
ings on one side of the street only she had
passed a German delicatessen shop,
trenh laundry. six drinking saloons kept
by lrlshmen, a Swiss wood carver, a
Spanish Jew pawnbroker, an Italian bal
let masters academy and one solitary
shop-a grocery-kept by a native Ameri-
can. AT the last corner she came upon
Fab Chung's laundry. She stopped at the
window to admire the scrupulous cleanh-
ness and to watch its owner at work
Now the ways of American laundry
women are not as the ways of Chinese
laundrymen.
The former sprinkles the rough dried
clothes by dipping her hand into a basin
of water and flirting the drops from her
finger tips. Then she rolls the garment
up tightly and lays it away for an hour
or two to absorb the moisture evenly.
Not so the Chinaman. He fills his
mouth with water and deftlv elects a tiny
spray over the garment in hand at the
same time he is ironing it.
Fab Chung lovingly pulling out the
dainty ruftles of little white apron with
his slender yellow fingers, and ironing
with ardor, was probably never so thun-
derstruck in his life as when it was
snatched from his hands and
a lovely little face as red as
rose with anger and disgust
disclosed TO him Miss Pearson s indignant
brown eyes The rest of her things Law
on a shelf near, and, scolding as fast as
her tongue could wag, she gaUherered
them up, thrust them into a piece of
paper, threw half dollar upon the table,
and marched away, the amazed Chung in
the meantime standing in helpless be-
wildermeut, his cheeks pJffed out with
his mouth full Of water, and his black
eyes staring.
After that Miss Pearson sent her
things to an Irishwoman, who scrubbed
them TO pieces within a month, and the
laundry of Fab Chung knew them no
more Alas!
His second mistake-a fatal one-sprang
from national difference of views re-
garding death and all things appertein-
ing thereto which exists between The ex-
IRENE east and the west
He sent her most gorgeous and com
Portable coffin-life size-for Christmas
present.
Any one in China would have been
BATTERED no end by such a splendid gift.
Miss Pearson did not seem to like it,
In fact, she took it as an intimation on
the Celestials part that the wooden
overcoat"-as they are facetiously termed
IN the states-wOuld presently have
wearer, whom he. in remem Orauce of the
scene in the laundry, would gladly pro-
vide.
1t is probable that Fab Chung would
have been kicked farther down the street
than he was, but that Caldwell. who was
in the drawing room when the gift was
presented, had to leave him Just then.
Miss Pearson, in her agitation. seemed
to require some one to hold her in his
arms and call her his darling, and assure
her that just as soon as he had time he
would go and finish that Cinnamon"
She would not let any of the other fellows
do it-Matie did not offer to $3.50 Cald-
well sacrificed himself. Good old fellow!
hdIl6 glanced al them, ana looked rather
as if she could have found use for that
coffin If they had not been in such haste to
pitch it into the street after its heart
broken owner.
The little Chinaman crept miserabIy
away, wondering at the uncivilized man
ners of those western barbariaus." But
even then lis art was true'-not TO
Poll, but to Pearson.
Caldwell married Miss Pearson.
He got his diploma as NJ. d. and settled
in her old home. They are shining
lights among the Deep Water Baptists
there.
Mrs. Caldwell-in view Of her great
familiarity with the Chinese, whereof
Fab ChunC's laundry list, " framed and
hanging IN her sitting roof, is proofs
always called upon TO entertain ''re-
turned foreign missionaries" and to
preside over the top boots and blanket"
clubs.
Matte has transferred her affections to
her mothers present head boarder"
She is no longer young. She would not
mind marrying.
Fab Chung? All, yes; Fab Chung.
Well he got killed one night near the
Bowery.
Caldwell, at that time accepted lover to
Miss Pearson, had told her that she must
on no account venture into any of the
streets between lower Broadway and the