he demanded sternly of the deliveryman outside

Painstakingly Nan conveyed to him that this was neither an amusing game nor a practical joke. Later in the day the door bell rang again. Nan, hovering near to gauge the result of her training, saw Wing Sam plant himself firmly in the opening. "You got ticket?" he demanded sternly of the deliveryman outside. "You no got ticket, you no get in!" Which, Nan rather hysterically gathered, was what Wing Sam had gained of the calling-card idea. After that, temporarily as she thought, Nan permitted him to go back to his own method, which, had she known it, was the method of every Chinese servant in California. The visitor found his bell answered by a blandly smiling Wing Sam, who cheerfully remarked: "Hullo!" It was friendly, and it didn't matter; but at that stage of her development Nan was more or less scandalized. Nan's sense of humour always came to her assistance by evening, and she had many amusing anecdotes to tell Keith, over which both of them laughed merrily. Gringo added somewhat to the complications in life. He was a fat, roly-poly, soft-boned, ingratiating puppy, with a tail that waved energetically but uncontrolledly. Gringo at times was very naughty, and very much in the way. But when exasperation turned to vengeance he had a way of keeling over on his back, spreading his hind legs apart in a manner to expose his stomach freely to brutal assault, and casting one calm china- blue eye upward. "Can there anywhere exist any one so hard-hearted as to injure a poor, absolutely defenceless dog?" he inquired, with full confidence in the answer. The iniquities of Gringo and the eccentricities of Wing Sam Nan detailed at length, and also her experiences with the natives. She as yet looked on every one as natives. Only later could she expand to the point of including them in her cosmos of people. Nan was transplanted, and her roots had not yet struck down into the soil. In her shopping peregrinations she was making casual acquaintance, and she had not yet become accustomed to it. "I bought some darling little casseroles at Phelan's to-day," she said. "The whole Phelan family waited on me. Where do you suppose the women get their perfectly awful clothes? Mrs. Phelan offered to take me to her milliner!" or "You know Wilkins--the furniture man where we got the big armchair? I was in there to-day, and he apologized because his wife hadn't called!" They went to bed early, because they were both very tired.