The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1895-04-20


ran thus:
go beautiful lady, the sun in the heav-
ems is not so bright as your smile; the fur
OF the mouse is not so soft as your soft hair
whittier than rice are your distinguished
teeth. Each hour my stupidity dies until
you bestow on my unwOrthiness your
adorable heart. Marry me. We will go
to China where you shall sit forever in the
sun and eat stewed mice with golden chop
sticks until the full moon is not so round
as your face. Oh lady, as beautiful as the
mOon!'
1t was rather a pity that Fab Ching
could not have learned 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 curtaned his
laundry window.
Strolling down the Bowery one bright
afternoon and enjoying to the full the
rush and roar of that Broadway of the
lower class 'Gothamites,' Miss Pearson
was amusing herself by counting the diff
ferent nationalities represented in the
shops and so on. At the last corner she
came upon Fab Chung's laundry. She
stopped at the window to admire the
scrupulOus cleanliness and to watch its
owner at work.
/ Now the ways of the American laundress
are not the ways of Chinese laundrymen.
! The former sprinkles the rough. dried
clothes by dipping her hand into 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 deity elects a tiny spray over
over the garment in hand at the same time
he is ironing it,
Fab Chung lovingly pulling out the
dainty rufies of little white apron with
his slender yellow fingers and ironing
with ardor, was probably never 20 thunder
struck in all his life, as when it was
snatched from his hands, and lovely little
3
disclosed to him Miss Pearson's indignant
brown eyes. The rest of her things lay on
shelf near and, scolding as fast as her
tongue could way, she gathered them up
thrust them into piece of paper, threw a
half dollar upon the table and marched
away, the amazed Chung in the meantime
standing in helpless bewlderment, his
cheeks pulled out with his mouth full OF
water, and his black eyes staring.
After that Miss Pearson took her things
to an Irish woman, who scrubbed them
to pieces within month and the laundry
o! Fab Chung knew them no more. Alas!
/ His second mistake-a fatal one-sprang
from a national difference of views regard
ing death and all things appertainng
thereto which exists between the extreme
East and the West
/ lie sent her most gorgeous and COM
Portable cotlin-life size-for a Christmas
present.
Anyone in China would have been flat
tered no end by such a splendid gift Miss
{ PEARSON ana not seem TO ike 1t.
In fact she took it as an intimation on
the Celestial S part that the wooden over
coat as they are facetouly termed in the
Statcs-would presently have wearer,
whom he in remembrance of the scene in
the laundry, would gladly provide.
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 $50
and finish that Chinaman" She would
not let any of the other fellows do it-so
Caldwell sacrificed himself Good old
fellow.
The little Cinnamon crept mserably away
wondering at the uncivilzed manners of
those western barbarians." But even
then is art was true'-not to Poll. Int
to Pearson.
Caldwell married Miss Pearson.
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 Bowery and the Bowerv
alone. So one evening" when he was at
the hospital, she felt it her imperative
duty to do So She wandered about Mul
berry Street, the Italian quarter, for a
while, and did the Jewish precinct-Bax-
ter Street-unconscou of two figures that
had been following her for the last half
hour. From the top of Baxter Street there
is short, very narrow very dark turning
leading into the wide and Northumberland
Bowery, This turning is very quiet II
is filled with Chinese gambling places and
opium dens. The police rather avoid the
place 1t rejoces in the descriptive and
suggestive local name of "Dead Mans