He seated himself beside me, and we were just beginning to chat pleasantly when my Aunt Gwendolin said:
"You have not heard our little Dependency sing, Professor Ballington?"
Grandmother's cheeks flushed, and Uncle Theodore looked embarrassed.
"Pearl, dear," she added sweetly, addressing me, "give us one of your stirring Spanish songs before we go to lunch. You can sing better before lunch than after."
In obedience to the request--which I felt to be a command--I went to the piano and sang lightly the only Spanish song _I could_ sing.
All the hearers seemed pleased with my effort. Professor Ballington looked calmly at me, but a smile lay behind his blue eyes. What did that smile mean?
We immediately sat down to lunch, and I was saved the embarrassment of having to tell that I could only sing _one_ Spanish song. I guess Aunt Gwendolin made sure that no such a dilemma should occur.
By some stray remark of Uncle Theodore's, the conversation at the table turned on what he calls the "Asiatic Problem."
"Those dreadful Asiatics," interposed Aunt Gwendolin, "so sly and subtle, they certainly should be shut out. They are a menace to any country."
"Above all nations is humanity," smilingly returned Professor Ballington.
"Especially those inferior people, the Chinese," added my aunt.
"We can scarcely call the Chinese inferior, Miss Morgan," returned Professor Ballington. (How I wanted to give him a hug!) "The Chinaman despises our day of small things. Like the Jew he possesses a great national history which dwarfs that of all other nations. The golden era of Confucius lies back five hundred years before the coming of Christ, and the palmy days of the Chan dynasty antedate the period of David and Solomon."
"Oh, yes," said my aunt curtly, "but what has he accomplished in all that time? We regard them as a nation of laundrymen."
"And they regard us as a nation of shopkeepers, and express lofty contempt for our greed of gain," said the professor.
"The idea!" said my aunt scornfully; "the fact is I always feel inclined to relegate the yellow-skinned denizens of China to the brute kingdom. Think of the _dreadful_ things that happen there! Life itself is of small account to them!"
"One of our own writers," returned the professor, "says, 'Life is safer in Pekin than in New York.' Another writer adds, 'Chicago beats China for official dishonesty!'"