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An Episode of Fiddletown
by
“One piecee washman flagittee.”
Then he began anew his fumblings and contortions. At last his efforts were rewarded by his producing, apparently from his right ear, a many-folded piece of tissue paper. Unwrapping this carefully, he at last disclosed two twenty-dollar gold pieces, which he handed to Mrs. Tretherick.
“You leavee money topside of blulow, Fiddletown. Me findee money. Me fetchee money to you. All lightee.”
“But I left no money on the top of the bureau, John,” said Mrs. Tretherick earnestly. “There must be some mistake. It belongs to some other person. Take it back, John.”
Ah Fe’s brow darkened. He drew away from Mrs. Tretherick’s extended hand, and began hastily to gather up his basket.
“Me no takee it back. No, no! Bimeby pleesman he catchee me. He say, ‘God damn thief!–catchee flowty dollar: come to jailee.’ Me no takee back. You leavee money topside blulow, Fiddletown. Me fetchee money you. Me no takee back.”
Mrs. Tretherick hesitated. In the confusion of her flight, she MIGHT have left the money in the manner he had said. In any event, she had no right to jeopardize this honest Chinaman’s safety by refusing it. So she said: “Very well, John, I will keep it. But you must come again and see me–” here Mrs. Tretherick hesitated with a new and sudden revelation of the fact that any man could wish to see any other than herself–“and, and–Carry.”
Ah Fe’s face lightened. He even uttered a short ventriloquistic laugh without moving his mouth. Then, shouldering his basket, he shut the door carefully and slid quietly down stairs. In the lower hall he, however, found an unexpected difficulty in opening the front door, and, after fumbling vainly at the lock for a moment, looked around for some help or instruction. But the Irish handmaid who had let him in was contemptuously oblivious of his needs, and did not appear.
There occurred a mysterious and painful incident, which I shall simply record without attempting to explain. On the hall table a scarf, evidently the property of the servant before alluded to, was lying. As Ah Fe tried the lock with one hand, the other rested lightly on the table. Suddenly, and apparently of its own volition, the scarf began to creep slowly toward Ah Fe’s hand; from Ah Fe’s hand it began to creep up his sleeve slowly, and with an insinuating, snakelike motion; and then disappeared somewhere in the recesses of his blouse. Without betraying the least interest or concern in this phenomenon, Ah Fe still repeated his experiments upon the lock. A moment later the tablecloth of red damask, moved by apparently the same mysterious impulse, slowly gathered itself under Ah Fe’s fingers, and sinuously disappeared by the same hidden channel. What further mystery might have followed, I cannot say; for at this moment Ah Fe discovered the secret of the lock, and was enabled to open the door coincident with the sound of footsteps upon the kitchen stairs. Ah Fe did not hasten his movements, but patiently shouldering his basket, closed the door carefully behind him again, and stepped forth into the thick encompassing fog that now shrouded earth and sky.
From her high casement window, Mrs. Tretherick watched Ah Fe’s figure until it disappeared in the gray cloud. In her present loneliness, she felt a keen sense of gratitude toward him, and may have ascribed to the higher emotions and the consciousness of a good deed that certain expansiveness of the chest, and swelling of the bosom, that was really due to the hidden presence of the scarf and tablecloth under his blouse. For Mrs. Tretherick was still poetically sensitive. As the gray fog deepened into night, she drew Carry closer toward her, and, above the prattle of the child, pursued a vein of sentimental and egotistic recollection at once bitter and dangerous. The sudden apparition of Ah Fe linked her again with her past life at Fiddletown. Over the dreary interval between, she was now wandering–a journey so piteous, willful, thorny, and useless that it was no wonder that at last Carry stopped suddenly in the midst of her voluble confidences to throw her small arms around the woman’s neck, and bid her not to cry.