Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 134: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

By JAMES PERLEY HUGHES we have no place upon the Chung Mei Bo worthy of your scholarly at- tainments,” said Charlie Chong, editor of that progressive San Francisco Chinese daily. He was addressing a tall, cadaverous man of his own race, a man whose withered cheeks and fishy eye told of ill-filled rice bowls and no pork. A former schoolmaster he was, whose knowledge had stagnated [ive ave esteemed Bong Lee, that ‘since the coming of Western learning and public schools to Chinatown. “In fact,” the young editor went on, “only yesterday the same question was asked by no less than a necromancer from the Temple, the distinguished Ho Si “ That worm!” The scholar leaped from the chair in which he had sat so stiffly. “That turtle’s son! Thus would he take the rice from my very lips. That scum of foul gutters—” “Be calm, worthy Bong Lee,” Charlie broke in with soothing unction; “ be calm.” “T will; that maggot shall not excite me.” And illustrating his words by acts, he dashed the tea bowl from which he had been drinking to the floor, ground its frag- ments beneath an outraged heel, and glared wildly about him. “Tf I but had that serpent here—thus would I crush him,” and he gestured dra- matically to the fragments from which but a moment before he had sipped the Dew of Heaven so gratefully. * Yes—yes—I understand,” the youth- ful editor placated. ‘“‘Of course if there is an opening here, I shall see that—” Bong Lee’s flushed cheeks subsided to their usual tone of secondhand ivory. ‘“¥ must trouble you no more with even the mention of that eel’s name,” the teacher spoke with forced calm. “‘ Another time we will talk of affairs. Ho hang la.” Bong Lee walked stiffly to the door, stopped to bow low, and then disappeared down the creaking stairs. “Ho hang la—may you walk well,” echoed the young man. 444