NOT SO MILD AS HE LOOKS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 881, 29 July 1910, Page 4

NOT SO MILD AS HE LOOKS.

THE ROMANCE OP AN OEANGE. It is a reasonable supposition that there are complacent-tempered Chinamen as well as Chinese of less congenial dispositions', but a certain Wellington resident seems to 'think that the ideas of those who regard this particular race of foreigners as beings of perpetual blandness and universal affability are mythical. To illustrate his point, the Wellingtonian gave an instance of what occurred in a local shop 1 the other day while he was within its doors. A young man enterod and said that he wished to be shown the best oranges. The Oriental said "Li," winked a slanted optic, shambled along to a\ heap of oranges, and, pointing to them, told the customer that they were the best—"Pli, two sh'lin' " (which, being interpreted, meaneth, "Price, two shillings"). The customer repeated that he would like to examine the fruit, whereupon the Flow-ery-lander snapped out that he could see them from where he stood, and demanded of him: "Be qui'—how much or'inge you wan'?" • .

"Plenty more fruit shops," said the young fellow, turning to go out. < The man of the race of blandness renowned—the man whom we used -to imagine as saying "cabbagee," and smiling the sweetest smile that blows—ejected a volume of articulated sound, which miglit have been a prayer to Confucius or an appeal to the national Lucifer. The white man stuck his head inside the door and asked why. the orator didn't say 'that in English. The complexion of the poll-taxed emitrrant changed throueh all the shades of the yellow chromatic scale, and he picked' up the nearest missile, and propelled it at the face in the doorway. The excitable one's agitation, was rather much for him. His arm struck the shelf behind him, the projectile whizzed up, struck tho ceiling, and dropped towards the doorway,'where it was caught by the customer. It was an orange.