Short Stories
in evening dress, and all chattering and laughing over topics and
witticisms that, while they were not exactly Greek to him, did
not interest him nor entertain.
But it was not merely his alienness and his growing desire to
return to his Chinese flesh-pots that constituted the problem.
There was also his wealth. He had looked forward to a placid
old age. He had worked hard. His reward should have been
peace and repose. But he knew that with his immense fortune
peace and repose could not possibly be his. Already there were
signs and omens. He had seen similar troubles before. There was
his old employer, Dantin, whose children had wrested from him,
by due process of law, the management of his property, having
the Court appoint guardians to administer it for him. Ah Chun
knew, and knew thoroughly well, that had Dantin been a poor
man, it would have been found that he could quite rationally
manage his own affairs. And old Dantin had had only three chil-
dren and half a million, while he, Chun Ah Chun, had fifteen
children and no one but himself knew how many millions.
"Our daughters are beautiful women," he said to his wife,
one evening. "There are many young men. The house is always
full of young men. My cigar bills are very heavy. Why are there
no marriages?"
Mamma Achun shrugged her shoulders and waited.
"Women are women and men are men—It is strange there
are no marriages. Perhaps the young men do not like our daugh-
ters."
"Ah, they like them well enough," Mamma Chun answered;
"but you see, they cannot forget that you are your daughters' fa-
ther."
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