Evening star., 1909-09-12
TURkO'FALLON,p prowler
of isolate seas and plea

the pawnshop for the fourth
time in four months. He
! ! : ]. ; !.
permitted the jade work of art
to remain in longer than he -
could help Always it was the
first of his spouted possessions -
to come ''out" after Lady
Fortune had cast a negotiable
smile in his direction, .l<|3l
The Jade piece was rare and
beautiful ornament, and,
doubt, of far greater intrinsic
value than any Of us, lacking
connoisseurshp to Chinese
art had any means OF suppos-
ing. 1t a Superbly carved
piece of solid jade of perfect
color more than foot high,
and of equal breadth and width The carving showed
little forest of noble trees the branches bark and
even the leaves being brought out in miraculous
detail On branch of the middle tree sat many
preening pheasants, and at the base of this tree
little Chinese boy, nearly naked stood in the act of
letting fly arrow at the birds on the branch One
required great familiarity with Chinese craftsman
ship to discern upon studying this piece of jade that
it must have taken patient Chinese artist
many months, if not years., of diligent effort to
achieve the quaint and beautiful piece of carving.
Nevertheless, Turks piece of jade of our
stock jokes at his expense When he swaddled it in
piece of black cambria and started to carry it out
thereby indicating that once he lee
shore of finance we harred him about it. making
pitiable quips about the Jade of Poverty" and
such like. We equally contemplate in our
slings when he brought the piece of carved jade
back, still wrapped in its black cambria No doubt
our purpose to force him to tell about where
how, why, and from whom he had obtained the jade
carving. But he had steadily refused to satisfy
curiosity.
Souvenir of Little Pete" he had always replied
choppily when we'd asked him about the piece of
jade, and no amount of chatting could prong from
him the meaning of that somewhat cryptic observa-
ton.
This time, however,-the occasion of the Jade
carving fourth safe return within four months from
the three-bals epostory,-found Turk in an ex-
pansive humor The world in for that
wanderer when he was in funds, and there had been
something left and above the price of the Jade
pieces redemption. Wherefore, taking note of his
cheerfuness, as he entered the room whist
ling, and carefully deposited the carving in its old
place atop OF his bookcase we bawled at him in
unison:
Where did you get it?"
Souvenir of Little Pete" he replied as usual;
but could see that the story ready to pop for
Turks eyes kindling with pent-up narrative
Little Pete!'' one of us snorted Who is or was
Little Pete? Any kin to Little Boy Blue? Did
Little Pete lose his sheep, like Little Bo-Peep?
Maybe he was second cousin of Little Jack Hor-
ners! Dispense with that wheeze about Little
Pete why don't YOU? What we want to know is this
Where did you get that hunk of jade?"
Thus we hectored him into spinning the story of
his jade carving.
TT only goes to show what bunch of uniformed
landlocked, stick-in- one-spot crustaceans YOU
fellows are, Turk began, gr1nning reprovingly that
you don't know who Little Pete was. Did YOU ever
hear OF Charlemagne or Napoleon?. Ever by any
chance read or hear about person by the name Of
julius Caesar! There was nifty old Chink once,
five or six thousand years ago, by the of Con-
fucus; hear of that one? Little before YOUR
time of course; but, then SO were Hannibal and
Hamilcar and yet those two last still figure in
the betting, too, in manner of speaking.
Oh, you have heard of Confucius then have YOU /?
Mighty queer then, call it, that you never heard of
Ii t.e Pete. Both were Cinnamon. Both were in a
class by themselves among Chinks. Confucius, of
course, cashed in long time ahead of Little Pete
but that's all the more reason why you farmers
ought to know about the later man
Seeing that the pack of you still look dense and
bovine, however, III give you line two on this
Little Pete Until about ten years ago Little Pete
that's all the the Chink ever had or wanted