Master Chen's Fortune

Master Chen's Fortune 134. The Sins of the Father Fortunately Mother was out when he first got home, and Lisa the maid was very kind in helping him get dry clothes. It was queer, but perhaps his others had not been as dry as tinder, after all.,That is so sweet, I think.",“Then that was what you meant when you told us that the laborers wouldn’t be any bother, was it?” asked Bob.,"Mona," says Rodney, divining her intent, "stay you here while I go and expostulate with these men. It is late, darling, and their blood is up, and they may not listen to you. Let me speak to them.",Their flight was swift, swooping something like a bird’s. From one tower the bucket would speed, only to stop silently and, almost before its crossways movement had ended, it would drop to the surface of the work. An instant to unload the bucket and in a flash it was up and gliding like the wind back to its starting point.，“Surely; but—”，“Stop and chin with me just a little, won’t you, marmsey?”，"What is it, if I may be so bold as to ask?"“Grand chain,” bawled Geordie evidently feeling his importance, “dos-et-dos, ladies’ chain, swing on the corners, and put some feelin’ in your step.

“He’s going to make a fine engineer, Mr. Hazard. You’ll be proud of him.”,"Yes; pigs!" says Mona, sweetly.,"Swim it, same's I did," Billy called back.,"You are candor itself," returns he, with a short laugh, shrugging his shoulders. "Of course I am bound to hope your wish may be fulfilled. And yet I doubt it. I am nearer my object to-night than I have ever been before; and," with a sardonic smile, "yours has been the hand to help me forward.",Nelson's stump wagged with annoyance.,By this time Moses’ plate was piled high with a steaming and odoriferous portion of Fuji Yama and he was content to postpone all discussions of Geography and fowls to an indefinite future. In a very few minutes, the entire mound had disappeared and Moses was polishing his plate with a piece of bread.,"Yet remember, darling, whatever comes of it," says Rodney, earnestly, "that you are more to me than all the world,—my mother included. So do not let defeat—if we should be defeated—cast you down. Never forget how I love you." In his heart he dreads for her the trial that awaits her.,And there I sat in my front room, being embraced in a perfume of everybody's lilacs and hawthorns and affectionate interest and moonlight, with a letter in my hand from the man whose two photographs and letters I used to keep locked up in my desk. Is it any wonder I tingled when he told me that he had never come back because he couldn't have me, and that now the minute he landed in England he was going to lay his heart at my feet? I added his colonial honours to his prostrate heart myself, and my own beat at the prospect. All the eight years faded away, and I was again back in the old garden down at Aunt Adeline's cottage saying good-bye, folded up in his arms. That's the way my memory put the scene to me, but the word "folded" made me remember that blue muslin dress again. I had promised to keep it and wear it for him when he came back—and I couldn't forget that the blue belt was just twenty-three inches and mine is—no, I won't write it. I had got that dress out of the old trunk not ten minutes after I had read the letter and measured it.,The intense desert sun, however, woke them early to the realization of their weary muscles. Bob was up first and disturbed Jerry’s slumbers by a sudden peal of laughter.,"How nice!" says Geoffrey, with a careless smile. "Your 'faint praise' fails 'to damn'! Why, one is nothing nowadays if not eccentric. Well," moving towards the door, with the fox-terrier at his heels, "I shall start on Monday. That will get me down in time for the 12th. Shall I send you up any birds?",He had been told what had happened, and presented himself equipped with wool, lint, and bandages. He speedily discovered that the pistol had been discharged at the place where Mr Lawrence supposed his heart to beat. The unfortunate man imagined that the heart is on the left side of the body, whereas it is nearly in the middle, and is well protected by the breast-bone and ribs, so well indeed that only a small portion is unprotected. The bullet[Pg 441] had passed clean through the chest and left lung, and come out just below the left blade-bone of the shoulder. The surgeon, on removing Mr Lawrence's shirt and vest, found the bullet, which had not pierced the vest. The wounds of entrance and of exit were easily seen, and the former was bleeding freely.,“Oh, John! My boy!” called Mother from the dining-room window..