Short Stories
erns of the races. He had furnished the slim-boned Chinese
frame, upon which had been builded the delicacies and subtle-
ties of Saxon, Latin, and Polynesian flesh.
Mrs. Ah Chun had ideas of her own to which Ah Chun gave
credence, though never permitting them expression when they
conflicted with his own philosophic calm. She had been used all
her life to living in European fashion. Very well. Ah Chun gave
her a European mansion. Later, as his sons and daughters grew
able to advise, he built a bungalow, a spacious, rambling affair,
as unpretentious as it was magnificent. Also, as time went by,
there arose a mountain house on Tantalus, to which the family
could flee when the "sick wind" blew from the south. And at
Waikiki he built a beach residence on an extensive site so well
chosen that later on, when the United States government con-
demned it for fortification purposes, an immense sum accompa-
nied the condemnation. In all his houses were billiard and smok-
ing rooms and guest rooms galore, for Ah Chun's wonderful
progeny was given to lavish entertainment. The furnishing was
extravagantly simple. Kings' ransoms were expended without
display—thanks to the educated tastes of the progeny.
Ah Chun had been liberal in the matter of education. "Never
mind expense," he had argued in the old days with Parkinson
when that slack mariner could see no reason for making the Ve-
ga seaworthy; "you sail the schooner, I pay the bills." And so
with his sons and daughters. It had been for them to get the edu-
cation and never mind the expense. Harold, the eldest-born, had
gone to Harvard and Oxford; Albert and Charles had gone
through Yale in the same classes. And the daughters, from the
eldest down, had undergone their preparation at Mills Seminary
in California and passed on to Vassar, Wellesley, or Bryn Mawr.
233