“You are going to die,” he said placidly, in a way, apologetically, “and it is fitting that your daughter should make proper obeisance to your departed spirit. A child’s devotion is best stimulated by gratitude. And little Fanny shall be grateful to you. For she will go to a good American school and, to pay for it, I shall sell your possessions after you are dead. The white jade bracelet, the earrings of green jade, the red sables—they will bring over four thousand dollars. Even this little bauble”—he slipped the glittering bracelet from her thin wrist—“this, too, will bring a few dollars. Ten, perhaps twelve; I know a dealer of such trifles in Mott Street who—” “Say!” Her voice cut in, raucous, challenging. She had wriggled out of his arms. An opaque glaze had come over her violet-blue eyes. Her whole body trembled. But she pulled herself on her elbows with a terrible, straining effort, refusing the support of his ready hands. “Say! How much did yer say this here bracelet’s worth?” He smiled gently. He did not want to hurt her woman’s vanity. So he increased his first appraisal. “Twenty dollars,” he suggested. “Perhaps twenty-one. Do not worry. It shall be sold to the best advantage—for your little daughter—” And then, quite suddenly, Fanny burst into laughter—gurgling laughter that shook her body, choked her throat, and leaped out in a stream of blood from her tortured lungs. “Twenty dollars!” she cried, “Twenty-one! Say, you poor cheese, that bracelet alone’ll pay for lil Fanny’s eddycation. It’s worth three thousand! It’s real, real—gold an’ diamonds! Gold an’ diamonds! Yung Long gave it to me, yer poor fool!” And she fell back and died, a smile upon her face, which made her look like a sleeping child, wistful and perverse. ―――― A day after his wife’s funeral Nag Hong Fah, having sent a ceremonious letter, called on Yung Long in the latter’s store. In the motley, twisted annals of Pell Street the meeting, in the course of time, has assumed the character of something epic, something Homeric, something almost religious. It is mentioned with pride by both the Nag and the Yung clans; the tale of it has drifted to the Pacific Coast; and even in far China wise men speak of it with a hush of reverence as they drift down the river on their painted house-boats in peach-blossom time. ―――― Yung Long received his caller at the open door of his shop. “Deign to enter first,” he said, bowing. Nag Hong Fah bowed still lower. “How could I dare to?” he retorted, quoting a line from the “Book of Ceremonies and Exterior Demonstrations,” which proved that the manner is the heart’s inner feeling. “_Please_ deign to enter first,” Yung Long emphasized, and again the other gave the correct reply: “How should I dare?”