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given to grass-choked board walks. He reflected back over the time when he had sweat seven days a week over an ironing board in the,establishment of Sam How at a wage of two dollars a week. He saw the time when Sam How and his brother had been wiped away by the Hop Yiks many years later.

"I go to work in the eating house of Man Li, place of ten thousand profits, O mother mine," he had written. "But the time will come when I will send for youhave no fear. San Francisco is possessed of many riches not dwelling in Peking. Already have I saved two hundred dollars. Should I send for you now, we could retire wealthy. But Buddha has said that we should wait. In another year will I have saved enough to have an eating house of my own. Soon I will go to the house of Hip Kat of the Six Companies where I will pay ten dollars that they will watch over you in the time that you come. No longer will you work in the rice gardens, no longer will you drink trade tea nor eat No. 3 rice. Have patience, for Wa Fo is slaving for you."

Came the big fire of 1906. Fo Soon found himself penniless. Undaunted he began anew. The letters to far Peking spoke of his sending the money soon. For a year he slaved day and night, at the end of which time he had accumulated but a scant hundred dollars. And then like a flash he won the prodigious sum of eighteen hundred dollars in the lottery.

For a thousand dollars he bought the little restaurant above the broom factory on Grant avenue near Clay, giving his note for the remainder. But he did not send for the little wisp of a mother. Things had happened too quickly for him; and shrewd that he he was forever looking ahead.

was,

But now that thirteen years had passed and the old mother had not come, Fo Soon saw in where he had been mistaken. Now that the ban on Chinese entering the United States was greater than ever, he came to see where it would cost him five hundred dollars to smuggle her in. And greatest of all, there was the risk, if taken up by Government agents, of not only having her deported but in the loss of his

money.

Only the week before arrangements had been made with Wa Yun, the tea merchant. To insure a safe and comfortable passage, Fo Soon had not hesitated in adding another hundred dollars. Thus it was that Wa Yun communicated with his collaborator, who in reply had ventured that within a month the junk would leave for the Land of Golden Prosperity.

As he stood there gazing about, a thrill of fulfillment possessed him. He thought of the letter in the pocket of his silk jacket, telling the mother of their good fortune. He would mail it in the morning.

With the departure of the last customer the place became vacant save for the two waiters in the corner who sat sucking up a hot conglomeration of noodles and fish with all the noise that two pairs of thin lips and chop sticks could make.

The old clock over the door proclaimed eight o'clock. Fo Soon sat at the little cashier's desk and picked his tobaccostained teeth with a quill. After a time he brought forth a long pipe with a small pewter bowl and filled it with a pinch of fine stringy tobacco. Then he sat placidly smoking while he scanned his account book.

At eight-thirty a man came in, paused for an instant, swept the room with a concerned gaze and then selected a table in one of the small booths. Lee My, the waiter, arose from his supper, wiped his mouth on his forearm and his arm on his side and came to learn the man's requests.

"I'll wait," he snapped in an annoyed tone of voice, proceeding to roll himself a cigarette with very nervous fingers. "There is another coming. Ah-let's see. Two orders of chop suey, a dish of fried rice and a large pot of the best Mandarin tea you have."

As he turned the pages of his account book, Fo Soon vaguely watched the erratic motions of his guest through the open door of the booth. Twice the man's writhing fingers broke the nearly-rolled cigarette, twice he began anew. After that he gave it up; had tied the napkin into an endless tangle, overturned the

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choya sauce bottle and gnawed the edges round of the menu card.

Fo Soon knew people. He knew the type of man with so little pride as to eat out of an ash can; the millionaire's son who brought the college Bohemian crowd after theatre hours on a Saturday night. He knew the gentleman yegg; the slum sniffler; the cut-throat wharf rat; the degraded minister; the man who had never lost his ex-jail grin; the virtuous dance hall girl; and the lawyer who pulled the political strings. Further, he knew the calibre of the man who now sat in his restaurant. Another other than he would have gone to the phone and called an officer from the Hall of Juctice on Kearny street. But he was a careful man. There was chance of his being mistaken. The fact that the man was a confirmed user of drugs was no business of his.

The two waiters ceased their mouth noises and retreated into the recess of the kitchen which lay far in the rear. Time passed and Dounahue, the plainclothes man, came in to spend his usual

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Sam How's Laundry

Palace of a Thousand Profits hour in the balcony overlooking the street. As he entered the heathen proprietor nodded. Dounahue went through the latticed door out onto the balcony and took his seat in the drizzle of rain. As for the man in the booth, he had been too greatly lost in the ravages of his own erratic conscience to notice the entrance of him.

"Damn it!" he flared, sweeping a match tray to the floor. "Why in hell doesn't she come? Here, you miserable Chink, get me a glass of water."

Fo Soon came slowly toward him, his hands slipped up his sleeves, face a little pale.

"What fo' you blokum' mi house?" he muttered. "You pay fifty cent fo' blokum' mi house! Fo' what you say me damn Chink?"

The man half arose, hands gripping the table cloth, a thin foam frothing from. his pallid lips.

"Why, you-"

Dounahue came through the door from half leaning across the table-dead. the balcony.

"What's wrong?" he snarled. "Fightin', eh? Just save it for me, will you? Be back when I nail that beggar across the street.'

While Dounahue was arresting the beggar on the opposite side of the street a woman entered the place. The man in the booth arose to new life and ran to her, pulling her in to the table.

"S-a-y," she broke out, "what's the idea? Anybody'd think-"

"Think hell did you bring it? Oh, for God's sake, don't say no

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"Oh, I got it-keep your shirt on, will you? And let me tell you something— he's dead!"

"Wa- keep quiet; for-Dead? You -you know I did it for you, Ruth! He He was drunk. He would have killed me! That snow was mine! Mine! You hear? Think I was going to see him beat you the way he did? Did you bring it? Did you bring it? Oh, for God's sake, don't tell me you couldn't get it, Ruth!"

"Shut up, you fool! Don't you think there's ears

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In one hand, drawn up to the chest, there was clutched a small piece of paper. Dounahue swept the corpse with a sharp gaze. Pulling the paper from the rigid fingers he touched it to the tip of his tongue. In a flash he had swung about to face the crouching heathen.

"Well," he flared, "where's the woman?"

Fo Soon gazed about him with a blank

stare.

"Well ?"

"No more. Me go out, she go out!" "Huh! And you tell me she gave him hop! When I came in here I saw you an' him-an' you was fighting. Now you work that gag! I heard him ask for a drink of water! An' now you tell me he took hop! You know what was in this paper? Potassium cyanide! Hop! By damn, I wish I could spring the trap when your time's up! Now come along!"

Fo Soon had said much at first. Some of what he had said had been in a singsong tongue. The answer had come with the fastening of two cold steel bracelets upon his thin wrists. As he went about in search for his hat, head low, a soft gurgle in his throat, he thought of the letter in his pocket. Putting half of it between his teeth, he slowly tore it into small strips.

"More of your dirty work," snarled Dounahue, as they passed out into the bleak sweep of street. But little old Fo Soon ventured no reply. People brushed to and fro. From the shop windows came lights of jade-green; of amber and burnt orange. Through the drizzle the cold air ran a gamut of spice, of fruit, of cooking and bad sewerage; while somewhere off in the far nearness a Mandarin orchestra wailed a throbbing woe, filling the Celestial shadows with a forlorn empti

ness.

Checkered Career of Swiss Soldier of Fortune Who Preceded the Argonauts

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Celebration at San Francisco July 4, 1836, Showing First Wooden House Erected

three white men, an Indian and a bulldog" and his Fortress of New Switzerland, at present Sacramento, there were born the Bear War, the Conquest, the Discovery of Gold, and a new America.

Native of Baden, citizen of Switzerland, lieutenant under Charles X of France, trader on the Santa Fe Trail,

At Monterey the capital at Alta California he speedily won the favor of that "native-son" governor, young Juan Bautista Alvarado, born at Monterey itself. The new-comer possessed letters of recommendation from the Hudson Bay Company of the Northwest, from the Russian trading companies of the Pacific Coast,

and from Honolulu merchants; and Alvarado, charmed with his speech and manners, impulsively urged him to apply for Mexican citizenship in California. He forwarded the captain on to Sonoma of the north, with introduction to "His Excellency my uncle," Don Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, comandante-general of Alta California.

The advice by Governor Alvarado that he announce his intention to become a Mexican citizen and that he consequently select a tract of land for his own, seemed good to Captain Sutter. After his agreeable visit at Sonoma and vicinity he em

site in the clear; and the spot was christened New Switzerland. So here was Captain Johann August Sutter, who, from Grenoble of France, had, by way of Santa Fe, Vancouver, Alaska and Honolulu, brought destiny to California. His little settlement was the farthest north of any in California; no Selkirk on Crusoe Island was more independent; authority other than his own did not reach here, and the land produced for all his needs. In the native Indians he found willing retainers, and in the beaver hunters who followed the Sacramento trail between Oregon and California valleys he found firm friends.

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Native Californians When the Gringo Came

barked his "eight Kanakas, three white men, an Indian and a bulldog" in San Pablo Bay south of Sonoma, and sailing up Suisun Bay to the mouth of the Sacramento river, with his pinnace and two schooners well laden, like a Hendrik Hudson he went exploring against the current. After an eight-day voyage he landed upon the south bank of the American Fork, about three miles above its juncture with the noble Sacramento. This was near the middle of August, 1839.

Out of poles and grass two rude structures were erected, upon a commanding

The Russian establishment of Ross, on the Coast directly west from New Helvetia, proved not profitable to its instigators. The famous Baron Wrangell, governor of the Russian provinces in America, failing to buy from the vigilant Mexican officials that additional land, back to the Sacramento and south to the bay, which he coveted, put upon the market, Ross itself.

For 30,000 pesos was the port and fort or Ross, with all its furnishings and livestock, offered to Comandante-General Vallejo of the presidio at Sonoma. When

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