LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 237, 13 March 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

WAN LEE, THE PAGAN, By Beet Haete. ( Continued.) We sat still and waited. Above the chant we could hear the striking of the city clocks, and the occasional rattle of a cart in the street overhead. The absolute watchfulness and expectation, the dim, mysterious halflight of the cellar falling in a grewsome way upon the misshapen bulk of a Chinese deity in the background, a faint smell of opium smoke mingling with spice, and the dreadful uncertainty of what we were really waiting for, sent an uncomfortable thrill down our backs, and made us look at each other with a forced an unnatural smile. This feeling was heightened when Hop Sing slowly rose, and, without a word, pointed with his finger to the centre of the shawl— There was something beneath the shawl—surely—and something that was not there before. At first a mere suggestion in relief, a faint outline; but growing more and more distinct and visible every moment. The chant still continued, the perspiration began to roll from the singer’s face, gradually the hidden object took upon itself a shape and bulk that raised the shawl in its centre some five or six inches It was now unmistakably the outline of a small but perfect human figure, with extended arms and legs. One or two of us turned pale, there was a feeling of general uneasiness, until the editor broke the silence by a gibe that, poor as it was, was received with spontaneous enthusiasm. Then the chant suddenly ceased, Wang arose, and, with a quick, dexterous movement, stripped both shawl and silk away, and discovered, sleeping peacefully upon my handkerchief, a tiny Chinese baby! The applause and uproar which followed this revelation ought to have satisfied Wang, even if his audience was a small one ; it was loud enough to awaken the baby—a pretty little boy about a year old, looking like a Cupid cut out of sandal-wood. He was whisked away almost as mysteriously as he appeared. When Hop Sing returned my handkerchief to me with a bow, I asked if the juggler was the father of the baby. ‘ No sabe !’ said the imperturbable Hop Sing, taking refuge in that Spanish form of noncommittalism so common in California. ‘ But does he have a new baby for every Eerformance ? I asked. * Perhaps ; who nows?’ ‘But what will become of this one?’ ‘Whatever you choose, gentlemen,’ replied Hop Sing, with a courteous inclination, ‘it was bom here, —you are its godfathers. ’ There were two characteristic peculiarities of any California assemblage in 1856 ; it was quick to take a hint, and generous to the point of prodigality in its reponse to any charitable appeal. No matter how sordid or avaricious the individual, he could not resist the infection of sympathy. I doubled the points of my handkerchief into a bag, dropped a coin into it, and, without a word, passed it to the Judge. He quietly added a twenty-dollar gold piece, and passed it to the next; when it was returned to me it contained over a hundred dollars. I knotted the money in the handkerchief, and gave it to Hop Sing. ‘ For the baby, from its godfathers. ’ ‘ But what name ?’ said the Judge. There was a running fire of ‘Erebus,’ ‘Nox,’ ‘Plutus,’ ‘Terra Cotta,’ ‘Antaeus,’ &c, &c. Finally the question was referred to our host. ‘ Why not keep his own name ?’ he said quietly— ‘ Wan Lee.’ And he did. And thus was Wan Lee, on the night of Friday, the sth of March, 1856, born into this veracious chronicle. * * * * * * The last forme of the Northern Star for the 19th of July, 1865—the only daily published in Klamath County—had just gone to press, and at 3 a.m. I was putting aside my proofs and manuscripts, preparatory to going home, when I discovered a letter lying under some sheets of paper,which I must have overlooked. The envelope was considerably soiled, it had no post-mark, but I had no difficulty in recognising the hand of my friend, Hop Sing. I opened it hurriedly, and read as follows ; My Dear Sir, —I do not know whether the bearer will suit you, but unless the office of ‘ devil ’ in your newspaper is a purely technical one, I think he has all the qualities required. He is very quick, active, and intelligent ; understands English better than he speaks it, and makes up for any defect by his habits of observation and imitation. You have only to show him how to do a thing once, and he will repeat it, whether it is an offence or a virtue. But you certainly know him already ; you are one of his godfathers, for is he not Wan Lee, the reputed son of Wang, the conjurer, to whose performances I had the honor to introduce you? But perhaps you have forgotten it. 1 shall send him with a gang of coolies to Stockton, thence by express to your town. If you can use him there you will do me a favor, and probably save his life, which is at present in great peril from the hands of the younger members of your Christian and highly civilised race, who attend the enlightened schools in San Francisco. He has acquired some singular habits and customs from his experience of Wang’s profession, which he followed for some years, until he became too large to go into a hat or be produced in his father’s sleeve. The money you left with me has been expended on his education ; he has gone through the tri-literal classics, but, I think, without much benefit. He knows but little of Confucius, and absolutely nothing of Mencius. Owing to the negligence of his father, he aesociated, perhaps, toe much with .American children. I should have answered your letter before by post, but 1 thought Wan Lee himself would be a better messenger for this. Yours respectfully, Hop Sing. And this was the long l delayed answer to my letter to Hop Sing. But where was the “ bearer ?” “ How was the letter delivered?” I summoned hastily the foreman, printers, and office-boy, but without eliciting anything ; no one had seen the letter delivered, nor knew anything of the bearer. A few days later I had a visit from my lauudryman Ah Ri. ‘You wantee debbil? All lightee ; me catchee him.’ He returned in a few moments with a bright-looking Chinese boy, about ten years old, with whose appearance and general intelligence I was so greatly impressed that I engaged him on the spot. When the business was concluded, I asked his name.

‘ Wan Lee,’ said the boy. ‘ What! Are you the boy sent out by Hop Sing. What the devil do you mean by not coming here before, and how did you deliver that letter ?’ Wan Lee looked at me and laughed. *Me pitchee in top-side window.’ I did not understand. He looked, for a moment perplexed, and then, snatching the letter out of my hand, ran down the stairs. After a moment’s pause, to my great astonishment, the letter came flying in the window, circled twice around the room, and then dropped gently like a bird upon my table. Before I had got over my surprise. Wan Lee reappeared, smiled, looked at the letter and then at me, said, ‘So, John,’ and then remained gravely silent. I said nothing further, but it was understood that this was his first official act. His next performance, I grieve to say, waa not attended with equal success. One of our regular paper-carriers fell sick, and, at a pinch, Wan Lee was ordered to fill his place. To prevent mistakes he was shown over the route the previous evening, and supplied at about daylight with the usual number of subscribers’ copies. He returned after an hour, in good spirits, and without the papers. He had delivered them all he said. Unfortunately for Wan Leo, at about eight o’clock indignant subscribers began to arrive at the office. They had received their copies ; but how ? In the form of hardpressed cannon balls, delivered by a single shot and a mere tour du force through the glass of the bedroom windows. They had received them full in the face, like a base ball, if they happened to be up and stirring ; they had received them in quarter-sheets, tucked in at separate windows ; they had found them in the chimney, pinned against the door, shot through attic windows, delivered into long slips through convenient key-holes, stuffed into ventilators, and occupying the same can with the morning’s milk. One subscriber, who waited for some time at the office door to have a personal interview with Wan Lee (then comfortably locked in my bedroom), told me, with tears of rage in his eyes, that he had been awakened at five o’clock by a most hideous yelling below his windows; that on rising, in great agitation, he waa startled by this sudden appearance of the Northern Star, rolled hard and bent in the form of a boomerang, or East Indian club, that sailed into the window, described a number of fiendish circles in the room, knocked over the light, slapped the baby’s face, * took * him (the subscriber) ‘in the jaw,’ and then returned out of the window, and dropped helpless in the area. During the rest of the day wads and strips of soiled paper, purporting to bo copies of the Northern Star, of that morning’s issue, were brought indignantly to the office. An admirable editorial on * The Resources of Humboldt County,’ which I had constructed the evening before, and which, I have reason to believe, might have changed the whole balance of trade during the ensuing year, and left San Francisco bankrupt at her wharves, was in this way lost to the public. It was deemed advisable for the next three weeks to keep Wan Lee closely confined to the printing-office and the purely mechanical part of the business. Here he developed a surprising quickness and adaptability, winning even the favour and good will of the printers and foreman, who at first looked upon his introduction into the secrets of their trade as fraught with the gravest political significance. He learned to set type readily and neatly, his wonderful skill in manipulation aiding him in the mere mechanical act, and his ignorance of the language confining him simply to the mechanical effort—confirming the printei’s axiom that the printer who considers or follows the idea of his copy makes a poor compositor. He would set up deliberately long diatribes against himself, composed by his fellowprinters, and hung on his hook as copy, and even such short sentences as “Wan Lee is the devil’s own imp,” “Wan Lee is a Mongolian rascal,” and bring the proof to me with happiness beaming from every tooth and satisfaction shining in his huckleberry eyes. It was not long, however, before he learned to retaliate on his mischievous persecutors. I remember one instance in which his reprisal came very near involving me in a serious misunderstanding. Our foreman’s name was Webster, and Wan Lee presently learned to know and recognise the individual and combined letters of his name. It was during a political campaign, and the eloquent and fiery Colonel Starbottle, of Siskyou, had delivered an effective speech, which was reported especially for the Northern Star. In a very sublime peroration Colonel Starbottle had said— * In the language of the god-like Webster, I repeat,’—and here followed the quotation, which I have forgotten. Now it chanced that Wan Lee, looking over the galley after it had been revised, saw the name of his chief persecutor, and, of course, imagined the quotation his. After the forme was locked up, Wan Lee took advantage of Webster’s absence to remove the quotation, and to substitute a thin piece of lead of the same size as the type, engraved with Chinese characters, making a sentence which, I had every reason to believe, was an utter and abject confession of the incapacity and offensiveness of the Webster family generally, and exceeding eulogistic of Wan Lee himself personally. To he continued.