beneath his blouse. I looked inquiringly at Hop Sing. He put his hand
between the folds of silk, and drew out something with the first bitter
smile I had ever seen on the face of that Pagan gentleman.

It was Wan Lee's porcelain god, crushed by a stone from the hands of
those Christian iconoclasts!




HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME


I think we all loved him. Even after he mismanaged the affairs of the
Amity Ditch Company, we commiserated him, although most of us were
stockholders, and lost heavily. I remember that the blacksmith went so
far as to say that "them chaps as put that responsibility on the old man
oughter be lynched." But the blacksmith was not a stockholder; and the
expression was looked upon as the excusable extravagance of a large,
sympathizing nature, that, when combined with a powerful frame, was
unworthy of notice. At least, that was the way they put it. Yet I
think there was a general feeling of regret that this misfortune would
interfere with the old man's long-cherished plan of "going home."

Indeed, for the last ten years he had been "going home." He was going
home after a six-months' sojourn at Monte Flat; he was going home after
the first rains; he was going home when the rains were over; he was
going home when he had cut the timber on Buckeye Hill, when there was
pasture on Dow's Flat, when he struck pay-dirt on Eureka Hill, when the
Amity Company paid its first dividend, when the election was over, when