When the fire was under control he had turned up at Mrs. Kirkham's, saying he had thought "Miss Lolly" would be there. Then he had taken Lorry's jewel box from under his coat and held it out to her, answering her surprise with a series of smiling nods. He had everything safe, down on the water front--the silver, the best glass, all the good clothes and most of the pictures which he cut from their frames. Yes, he had moved them after Aunt Ellen left, having packed them earlier in the day and got a friend from Chinatown who had a butcher's wagon. They had worked together, taken the things out through the back alley, very quiet, very quick; the soldiers never saw them. He had driven across town to a North Beach wharf, hired a fishing smack, and with two Italians for crew, cast off and sailed about the bay for three days. "I stay on boat all time," he said. "My business mind your stuff. I watch out, no leave dagoes, no go sleep. All locked up now. Chinamen hide him, keep him safe. I bring back when you get good house." When they moved to San Rafael he brought them back, a load that must have filled the butcher's wagon to its hood. His young ladies' gratitude pleased him, but to their offers of a reward he would not listen. "Old Chinaman take care of my boss's house like my boss want me. Bad time, good time, ally samey. You no make earthquake--he come--my job help like evly day. I no good Chinaman if I don't. I no get paid extla for do my job." The girls, after fruitless efforts, had to give in. Afterward, in their rooms when they sorted the clothes--the two beds were covered with them--they cried and laughed over the useless finery. Fong had carried away only the richest and costliest--evening dresses, lace petticoats, opera wraps, furs, high-heeled slippers, nothing that could be worn as life was now. "We'll have to go about in ball dresses for the rest of the summer," said Chrystie, giggling hysterically. "How nice you'll look weeding the garden in an ermine stole and white satin slippers." "We've got to wear them somewhere," Lorry decided. "For one reason we've almost nothing else, and for another--and the real one--Fong mustn't know he's rescued the wrong things. I _will_ weed the garden in white satin slippers, and I'll put on a ball dress for dinner every night." Chrystie was well again now. Drowsing on the balcony in the steamer chair and taking sun baths in the garden had restored her, if not quite to her old rosy robustness, to a pale imitation of her once glowing self. The rest of her hair had been cut off, and her shaven poll was hidden by a lace cap with a fringe of false curls sewed to its edge. This was very becoming and in sweeping draperies--some of the evening dresses made over into tea gowns--she was an attractive figure, her charms enhanced by a softening delicacy.