So home she came, resolved to do better.  Toy was placidly finishing up for the afternoon.  Billy followed him around for a while, being a housekeeper.  Toy watched her with round, astonished eyes.  Finally he turned on her with vast indignation.

“Look here, Mis’ White,” said he.  “What a matter with you?  You talk just like one old woman!”

Billy paused in her mad career and considered.  That was just what she was talking like.  She laughed.  Toy laughed.  Billy went shooting.

After your Chinaman becomes well acquainted with you, he develops human traits that are astonishing only in contrast to his former mask of absolute stolidity.  To the stranger the Oriental is as impassive and inscrutable as a stone Buddha, so that at last we come to read his attitude into his inner life, and to conclude him without emotion.  This is also largely true of the Indian.  As a matter of fact, your heathen is rather vividly alive inside.  His enjoyment is keen, his curiosity lively, his emotions near the surface.  If you have or expect to have visitors, you must tell Ah Sing all about them—­their station in life, their importance, and the like.  He will listen, keenly interested, gravely nodding his pig-tailed, shaven head.  Then, if your visitors are from the East, you inform them of what every Californian knows—­that each and every member of a household must say “good morning” ceremoniously to Ah Sing.  And Ah Sing will smile blandly and duck his pig-tailed, shaven head, and wish each member “good morning” back again.  It is sometimes very funny to hear the matin chorus of a dozen people crying out their volley of salute to ceremony; and to hear again the Chinaman’s conscientious reply to each in turn down the long table—­“Good mo’ning, Mr. White; good mo’ning, Mis’ White; good mo’ning, Mr. Lewis——­” and so on, until each has been remembered.  There are some families that, either from ignorance or pride, omit this and kindred little human ceremonials.  The omission is accepted; but that family is never “my family” to the servant within its gates.

For your Chinaman is absolutely faithful and loyal and trustworthy.  He can be allowed to handle any amount of money for you.  We ourselves are away from home a great deal.  When we get ready to go, we simply pack our trunks and depart.  Toy then puts away the silver and valuables and places them in the bank vaults, closes the house, and puts all in order.  A week or so before our return we write him.  Thereupon he cleans things up, reclaims the valuables, rearranges everything.  His wonderful Chinese memory enables him to replace every smallest item exactly as it was.  If I happen to have left seven cents and an empty .38 cartridge on the southwestern corner of the bureau, there they will be.  It is difficult to believe that affairs have been at all disturbed.  Yet probably, if our stay away has been of any length, everything in the house has been moved or laid away.