It was but the next week when, unexpectedly as thunderbolts now and then
surprise us on days of serene, unclouded sky, an unlooked-for domestic
calamity startled Alamo Ranch.
Dennis, the good-natured Irish waiter, and Fang Lee, the Chinese cook,
had come to blows. The battle had been (so to put it) a religious
controversy, and such, as we know, have a bitterness all their own. It
was inaugurated by Dennis, who, as a good Catholic, had, on a Friday,
refused to sample one of Fang's _chef-d'oeuvres_,--a dish of veal
cutlets with mushroom sauce. A mutual interchange of offensive words,
taunts highly derogatory to his holiness Pope Leo XIII. and equally
insulting to the memory of that ancient Chinese sage, Confucius, had
finally led to a bout of fisticuffs. In this encounter, Fang Lee, a
slightly built, undersized celestial, had naturally been worsted at the
hand of the robust Hibernian, a good six feet five in his stockings.
Dennis, the "chip well off his shoulder," had peacefully returned to the
duties of his vocation, nonchalantly carrying in the dinner, removing
the plates and dishes, and subsequently whistling "St. Patrick's Day in
the Morning" under the very nose of the Confucian, as he unconcernedly
washed his plates and glasses, and scoured his knives. Fang, having
meantime sent in his dinner, cleaned his pots and pans, brushed his
baggy trousers, adjusted his disordered pigtail, and straightway gave in
his notice; and with sullen dignity retired to the privacy of his
bedroom, for the avowed purpose of packing his box. On the ensuing
morning he would shake from his feet the dust of Alamo Ranch.
Vain were the endeavors of his discomfited employers to gain the ear of
the implacable Fang Lee. He stood out resolutely for the privacy of his
small sleeping apartment, obstinately refusing admission to outsiders.
In a house replete with boarders, and forty miles from available cooks,
Fang's pending loss was indeed a calamity.
In this dilemma, the disheartened landlord and his wife begged the
intercession of the star boarder,--always in high favor with the
domestics, and known to be especially in the good graces of the
Chinaman. Long did this envoy of peace unsuccessfully besiege the
bedroom door of the offended Fang Lee. In the end, however, he gained
admittance; and with adroit appeals to the better nature of the irate
cook, and a tactful representation of the folly of giving up a good
situation for the sake of a paltry quarrel, he finally brought Fang Lee
down from his "high horse," and persuading good-natured Dennis to make
suitable friendly advances, effectually healed the breach.
Ere nightfall amity reigned in the ranch kitchen, and the respective
pockets of the belligerents were the heavier for a silver dollar,--a
private peace-offering contributed by the arbitrator. An Irishman is
nothing if not magnanimous; Dennis readily "buried the hatchet," handle
and all.
Not so Fang Lee, who, smugly pocketing his dollar, covertly observed to
the giver, by way of the last word, "All samee, Pope bigee dam foolee."
With genial satisfaction the star boarder received the thanks of the
Browns for having saved to them their cook, and, with simple pleasure in
the result of his diplomacy, met the encomiums of his fellow-boarders.
To this gracious and beautiful nature, replete with "peace and good-will
to man," to help and serve was but "the natural way of living."