It was but the next week when, unexpectedly as thunderbolts now and then surprise us on days of serene, unclouded sky, an unlooked-for domestic calamity startled Alamo Ranch.

Dennis, the good-natured Irish waiter, and Fang Lee, the Chinese cook, had come to blows. The battle had been (so to put it) a religious controversy, and such, as we know, have a bitterness all their own. It was inaugurated by Dennis, who, as a good Catholic, had, on a Friday, refused to sample one of Fang's chef-d'oeuvres,—a dish of veal cutlets with mushroom sauce. A mutual interchange of offensive words, taunts highly derogatory to his holiness Pope Leo XIII. and equally insulting to the memory of that ancient Chinese sage, Confucius, had finally led to a bout of fisticuffs. In this encounter, Fang Lee, a slightly built, undersized celestial, had naturally been worsted at the hand of the robust Hibernian, a good six feet five in his stockings. Dennis, the "chip well off his shoulder," had peacefully returned to the duties of his vocation, nonchalantly carrying in the dinner, removing the plates and dishes, and subsequently whistling "St. Patrick's Day in the Morning" under the very nose of the Confucian, as he unconcernedly washed his plates and glasses, and scoured his knives. Fang, having meantime sent in his dinner, cleaned his pots and pans, brushed his baggy trousers, adjusted his disordered pigtail, and straightway gave in his notice; and with sullen dignity retired to the privacy of his bedroom, for the avowed purpose of packing his box. On the ensuing morning he would shake from his feet the dust of Alamo Ranch.

Vain were the endeavors of his discomfited employers to gain the ear of the implacable Fang Lee. He stood out resolutely for the privacy of his small sleeping apartment, obstinately refusing admission to outsiders.

In a house replete with boarders, and forty miles from available cooks, Fang's pending loss was indeed a calamity.

In this dilemma, the disheartened landlord and his wife begged the intercession of the star boarder,—always in high favor with the domestics, and known to be especially in the good graces of the Chinaman. Long did this envoy of peace unsuccessfully besiege the bedroom door of the offended Fang Lee. In the end, however, he gained admittance; and with adroit appeals to the better nature of the irate cook, and a tactful representation of the folly of giving up a good situation for the sake of a paltry quarrel, he finally brought Fang Lee down from his "high horse," and persuading good-natured Dennis to make suitable friendly advances, effectually healed the breach.

Ere nightfall amity reigned in the ranch kitchen, and the respective pockets of the belligerents were the heavier for a silver dollar,—a private peace-offering contributed by the arbitrator. An Irishman is nothing if not magnanimous; Dennis readily "buried the hatchet," handle and all.

Not so Fang Lee, who, smugly pocketing his dollar, covertly observed to the giver, by way of the last word, "All samee, Pope bigee dam foolee."

With genial satisfaction the star boarder received the thanks of the Browns for having saved to them their cook, and, with simple pleasure in the result of his diplomacy, met the encomiums of his fellow-boarders.

To this gracious and beautiful nature, replete with "peace and good-will to man," to help and serve was but "the natural way of living."