“Missa Dan, you fire Julia, Sooey Wan ketchum boat, go back China pretty quick.”
His impudence enraged Dan. “You may start now, Sooey Wan,” he told the Celestial. “I’ll keep Julia, but you’re fired.”
Sooey Wan looked at Tamea, who smiled and nodded to him. In effect she said to him: “Don’t pay any attention to him, Sooey Wan. I am in command here.”
Sooey Wan had evidently planned for this moment. His shrill, unmirthful cachinnation rang through the house. “Boss,” he piped, “you klazy, allee same Missie Pip. You fire me? Pooh-pooh! No can do. Sooey Wan belong your papa, papa give me to you, how can do? You fire me, who ketchum dinner, eh? You klazy.”
Again Dan sighed. It appeared that Sooey Wan’s first introduction to the Pritchard household had been due to a tong war in Chinatown. Sooey Wan, young, bold, aggressive, had been marked for slaughter in a tong feud, and the high-binder whose duty it had been, for a consideration, to waft him into the spirit world, had dropped Sooey Wan with his first shot. Then a cane had descended upon his wrist, causing him to drop his pistol. The peacemaker, Dan’s father, had thereupon possessed himself of it, handed the would-be assassin over to the police and forgotten the incident. Sooey Wan eventually recovered from his wound and at once sought out Pritchard senior, to whom he explained that by reason of an ancient Chinese custom he who saved a human life was forever after responsible for that life. Therefore, it behooved Dan’s father to place Sooey Wan on his payroll instanter, which, being done, the latter became one of the assets of the Pritchard estate. Inasmuch as Dan had been the sole heir to that estate, naturally, to Sooey Wan’s way of thinking, he had inherited his father’s responsibility for Sooey Wan’s life while the latter continued to live. Ergo, Sooey Wan could not be dismissed!
Decidedly, reprisals were not in order. There was naught to do save accept the situation gratefully, cast about for another school for Tamea and try, try again. Dan recalled that there was a very excellent convent in Sacramento. He would call upon the Mother Superior there, explain Tamea at length and seek to have the censorship law repealed in so far as she was concerned. He would offer to pay double the customary rate in return for special treatment and forbearance in Tamea’s case. And he would tell that infernal Julia what he thought about her—no, he would not. If he did she would weep and when Julia wept her pathetic lack of beauty was extraordinarily depressing.
“Well, I’m awfully happy to see you again, sweetheart,” he said, and favored Tamea with one hearty kiss in return for the dozens she had showered upon him. “Any news from Maisie or her aunt?”
“Divil a wor’rd, sor,” said Julia, coming downstairs at that moment. “I called her up, makin’ bould enough to ax her to reason wit’ Mrs. Pippy, sor, but she would not. Says she to me, says she: ‘Julia, there’s no reasonin’ wit’ anybody in that household, so I’ll not be botherin’ me poor head about them. When Misther Pritchard wants me he’ll sind for me’.”
“Quite so, Julia, quite so. She is absolutely right.”
He went upstairs, bathed and changed his clothes. He intended returning to the office, but Tamea pleaded with him to spend the remainder of the day amusing her. So he took her to a vaudeville show, and Tamea held his hand and, between acts, whispered to him little messages of love. Once, when the house was dark, she leaned over and kissed him very tenderly on the ear. Then, remembering that he held a grudge against Sooey Wan, whom he knew would prepare a special dinner to celebrate his return, Dan decided to take Tamea out to dinner and, deliberately, to fail to telephone Sooey Wan. He knew that would infuriate the old Chinaman and indicate to him that he had been reproved.