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"All men who come now not like you, Mist Bullage." There was something of mystery, an odd suggestion of withheld meaning, in the old servant's manner that made Mark smile. "How are they different better or worse?" Fong passed him, going to the drawing-room door. His hand on the knob, he turned, his voice low, his slit eyes craftily knowing. "Ally samey not so good.
"Well," said Mark, stretching a hand for his pipe, thinking his visitor had come to pay a friendly call, "I'm glad to see you, Fong, and I'm ready to talk all the storlies you want. So fire away." Fong considered, studying his hat, then said slowly: "You velly good man, Mist Bullage, and you lawyer. You know what to do I dunno no one same likey you.
"You bin away, Mist Bullage," he said, placing the card the young man gave him on the hall table cards were only presented in the case of strangers. "How did you know that?" Mark asked, surprised. Fong's face suggested intense, almost childish amusement. "I dunno I hear some place I forget." "I've been up in Sacramento County with my people maybe Crowder told you."
At five in winter and at six in summer Fong lit this as he had done for the last twenty-four years. No one, no matter what the argument, could make him light it any earlier, any later, or turn the cock at a lesser or greater angle. The visitor was Mark Burrage, and seeing this Fong broke into smiles and friendly greeting: "Good evening, Mist Bullage Glad see you, Mist Bullage.
Then an evening came when, his jaw set, his heart thumping like a steam piston, he put on his best blue serge suit, his new gray overcoat, even a pair of mocha gloves, and went forth with a face as hard as a stone. Fong opened the door, saw who it was and broke into a joyful grin. "Mist Bullage! Come in, Mist Bullage. No see you for heap long time, Mist Bullage."
Fong looked at her, gently inquiring, "You no like Mist Bullage, Miss Lolly?" "Of course I like him. Won't you please attend to what I'm saying?" "Then you ask him and I make awful swell dinner same like I make for your Pa when General Grant eat here." When Fong had a fixed idea that way there was no use arguing with him; one rose with a resigned air and left the kitchen.
"I've been busy," said the visitor. "Hadn't much time to come around." Fong helped him off with the gray overcoat. "You work awful hard, Mist Bullage. Too hard, not good. You come here and have good time. Lots of fun here now. You come." He moved to hang the coat on the hatrack, and, as he adjusted it, turned and shot a sharp look over his shoulder at the young man.
What she felt was kept very secret, but even if it hadn't been there was no one to notice, certainly not Chrystie, nor Aunt Ellen. The only other person near enough to notice was Fong, and it wasn't Fong's place to help at least to help in an open way. One morning in the kitchen, when he and "Miss Lolly" were making the menu for a new dinner, he had said, "Mist Bullage come this time?"
Fine night, Mist Bullage." Fong was an old man just how old nobody knew. For thirty-five years he had served the Alstons, had been George Alston's China boy in Virginia City, and then followed him, faithful, silent, unquestioning to San Francisco. There he had been the factotum of his "boss's" bachelor establishment, and seen him through his brief period of married happiness.
"Miss Lolly," with a faint access of color and an eye sliding from Fong's to the back porch, had answered, "No, I'm not asking Mr. Burrage to this one, Fong." "Why not ask Mist Bullage?" Fong had persisted, slightly reproving. "Because I've asked him several times and he hasn't come." That was in the old Bonanza manner. One answered a Chinaman like Fong truthfully and frankly as man to man.
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