The Yellow and White Agony. 349 



these silent, solemn-looking celestials ; and I am sure that every- 

 body's business and family affairs are well discussed and 

 exaggerated at all the various Chinese stores where the domestics 

 congregate of an evening. The qualities of every mistress are well 

 known, and some in consequence find it difficult to induce any 

 Chinaman to enter their service. Certainly everyone's income is 

 speculated upon, and if one lives in a house which fetches a certain 

 rent, one will only be able to procure a Chinaman at corresponding 

 wages. A man who had been with me, receiving iSdols. a month, 

 and whom I had sent away, was offered 2odols. by another lady, 

 yet he begged to come back to me. Not wanting him, I told him to 

 take the other place : " Too little money," he said. " But it is 

 more than I gave you." " No matter," he said ; " that house 

 twenty-five dollar Chinaman, I no go there, she no give me 

 twenty-five ; you eighteen dollar house, I likee stay with you." 

 Later on, when we took a house where the former owners had 

 always paid 3odols. a month for their cook, I could not get a man 

 to come for a cent less. 



One winter when I was in Victoria there was an unusual 

 scarcity of Chinese servants, and I tried in vain to procure a 

 suitable white girl. I at last engaged a small six-dollar boy. He 

 could say " Yes," and " Boot," and " Knife." He knew absolutely 

 nothing. When one has to train a boy like this, one recognises 

 what it is not to have an European groundwork to begin on. The 

 most elementary things must be taught from the [beginning. He 

 could not light a fire, he had never used a scrubbing brush, and he 

 had not yet realised that empty saucepans left on a red-hot 

 st.ove will burn, and that tin ones invariably melt. But once 

 shown how to do anything, the boy, whom we called Charlie, not 

 having been able to understand his real name, never forgot how to 

 do it. 



It was only when a circumstance arose for which he had not 

 received instructions that he would act on his own initiative in 

 the most unexpected manner. For instance, he showed a poor 

 woman who used to come round hawking fruit^and vegetables into 



