bully him into making the change. They tried both courses, and in
the latter one failed especially disastrously. They had not been to
America for nothing. They had learned the virtues of the boycott as
employed by organized labour, and he, their father, Chun Ah Chun,
they boycotted in his own house, Mamma Achun aiding and abetting.
But Ah Chun himself, while unversed in Western culture, was
thoroughly conversant with Western labour conditions. An extensive
employer of labour himself, he knew how to cope with its tactics.
Promptly he imposed a lockout on his rebellious progeny and erring
spouse. He discharged his scores of servants, locked up his
stables, closed his houses, and went to live in the Royal Hawaiian
Hotel, in which enterprise he happened to be the heaviest
stockholder. The family fluttered distractedly on visits about with
friends, while Ah Chun calmly managed his many affairs, smoked his
long pipe with the tiny silver bowl, and pondered the problem of his
wonderful progeny.

This problem did not disturb his calm. He knew in his philosopher's
soul that when it was ripe he would solve it. In the meantime he
enforced the lesson that complacent as he might be, he was
nevertheless the absolute dictator of the Achun destinies. The
family held out for a week, then returned, along with Ah Chun and
the many servants, to occupy the bungalow once more. And thereafter
no question was raised when Ah Chun elected to enter his brilliant
drawing-room in blue silk robe, wadded slippers, and black silk
skull-cap with red button peak, or when he chose to draw at his
slender-stemmed silver-bowled pipe among the cigarette- and cigar-
smoking officers and civilians on the broad verandas or in the
smoking room.