e old gentleman's walk was quite spoiled.
"When Miss Cragiemuir and Ah Moy reached the house in K Street the young
woman thanked her pupil for his escort, and politely wished him a good
afternoon. As she was about to leave him he madly seized her around the
waist, exclaiming, 'Ah Moy kissee you good-bye!' and tried his best to
do so. Miss Cragiemuir screamed, and nearly fainted with fright.
Luckily, the Major turned the corner just at this moment, and speedily
took in the situation. He rushed at the Chinaman, hurling him to the
pavement, and beat him soundly with his ever-ready stick. Then he
bestowed several well-directed kicks upon the prostrate form. Ah Moy
scrambled to his feet and fled, closely pursued by the enraged Major;
but the nimble-footed Chink managed to make good his escape, darting
into a friendly alley, and disappearing.
"The terrified girl hurried into the house, and received shortly
afterward from her father a brief, but spirited lecture, which she will
long remember. He sternly declared, after touching upon all of her
hobbies,--he called them by a stronger name,--that if she continued to
give him trouble he would close up the Washington house and live in
future at The Oaks, the Cragiemuir place down in Maryland. This dire
threat proved most effectual, for Janet hated The Oaks, and she recalled
with disagreeable vividness one never-to-be-forgotten year spent there
as a child. So she went to her room and wrote to the superintendent at
Bethany that a sudden change in her plans would force her to give up her
class. The letter, a masterpiece in its way, closed with expressions of
the deepest regret, and was duly received by the excellent Mr. Bagby,
who felt that both Bethany and himself had sustained an irreparable
loss.
"But the affair of the Chinaman by no means ended here.
"Ten minutes after his unpleasant encounter with Major Cragiemuir, Ah
Moy arrived at his place of business in Four-and-a-half Street, a mass
of bruises, and with a heart full of hatred for his assailant. Perhaps,
after all, the fellow had meant no harm. In his guileless, imitative way
he had simply tried to do what he had often seen American young men do.
Had he not frequently observed big Policeman Ryan kiss the red-haired
widow who kept the lodging-house around on Missouri Avenue? Did not
Muggsy Walker--across the street--salute his sweetheart in the same
manner? Ah Moy had many times witnessed what struck him as a most absur
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