Hong Lee asked me to sit down on the ironing table and make myself at home. I asked him how trade was, and a few other unimportant questions, and then asked him what he thought of Leadville. I cannot give the conversation in the exact language in which it was given, as I am not up in pigeon English. He said he went over to Leadville, thinking that at $4.25 per dozen he could work up a good business and wear a brocaded overshirt with slashed sleeves and Pekin trimmings. Trade was a little dull here and he had more Chinamen than he could use, so he had concluded to establish a branch outfit at Leadville and make some scads. I asked him why he did not remain at the camp and go through the pro--- gramme. He said that the general feeling in Leadville was not friendly to the Chinaman. The people did not meet him with a brass band, and the mayor didn't tender him the freedom of the city. On the contrary, they seemed cold and distant toward him. By and by they clubbed together and came to call on him. They were very attentive then. Very much so. Some had shot-guns to fire salutes with, and others had large clotheslines in their hands. Hong Lee felt proud to be so much thought of, and was preparing an impromptu speech on orange paper with a marking brush, when the chairman came and told him that a few American citizens had come, hoping to be of use to him in learning the ways of the city. Then they took him out to the public square where Hong Lee supposed that he was to make his speech, and they proceeded to kick him into the most shapeless mass. They kicked him into a globular form and then flattened him out after which they knocked him into a rhomboid. This change was followed by thumping him into an isosceles triangle. When he looked more like a bundle of old clothes than a Chinaman, they took him with a pair of tongs, and threw him over the battlements. [Illustration: 9124] Hono-Lee returned to consciousness, and murmured, "Where am I?" or words to that effect. A noble mule-skinner passing by, touched him up with the hot end of his mule whip, and showed him the route to Denver. Hong Lee says now, be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. YOU FOU. |She is rather below the medium height, and her gait is the easy gliding movement of a club-footed Guinea pig. She has a mouth like a whippoorwill, and when she laughed at some little _bon mot_, such as I am always getting off, her upper lip was thrown back over her head, till it caught on a large Celestial hair-pin, and her attendant had to go up there with a monkey-wrench and unfasten it. It was the most heavenly smile I ever saw. It had so much depth and soul to it. I felt flattered, of course, but I was more guarded in my remarks after that. The Chinese, as a nation, cannot grapple with our American style of joke. They are not strong enough.