There was nothing striking in the appearance of Chun Ah Chun.  He was rather undersized, as Chinese go, and the Chinese narrow shoulders and spareness of flesh were his.  The average tourist, casually¹ glimpsing him on the streets of Honolulu, would have concluded that he was a good-natured little Chinese, probably the proprietor² of a prosperous laundry or tailorshop.  In so far as good nature and prosperity went, the judgment³ would be correct, though beneath the mark; for Ah Chun was as good-natured as he was prosperous, and of the latter no man knew a tithe⁴ the tale.  It was well known that he was enormously wealthy, but in his case “enormous” was merely the symbol for the unknown.  
Ah Chun had shrewd little eyes, black and beady and so very little that they were like gimlet-holes.  But they were wide apart, and they sheltered under a forehead that was patently the forehead of a thinker.  For Ah Chun had his problems, and had had them all his life.  Not that he ever worried over them.  He was essentially⁵ a philosopher, and whether as coolie, or multi-millionaire and master of many men, his poise⁶ of soul was the same.  He lived always in the high equanimity⁷ of spiritual repose⁸, undeterred by good fortune, unruffled by ill fortune.  All things went well with him, whether they were blows from the overseer in the cane⁹ field or a slump¹⁰ in the price of sugar when he owned those cane fields himself.  Thus, from the steadfast¹¹ rock of his sure content he mastered problems such as are given to few men to consider, much less to a Chinese peasant.
 
He was precisely¹² that—a Chinese peasant, born to labour in the fields all his days like a beast, but fated to escape from the fields like the prince in a fairy tale.  Ah Chun did not remember his father, a small farmer in a district not far from Canton; nor did he remember much of his mother, who had died when he was six.  But he did remember his respected uncle, Ah Kow, for him had he served as a slave from his sixth year to his twenty-fourth.  It was then that he escaped by contracting himself as a coolie to labour for three years on the sugar plantations¹³ of Hawaii for fifty cents a day.
 
Ah Chun was observant.  He perceived little details that not one man in a thousand ever noticed.  Three years he worked in the field, at the end of which time he knew more about cane-growing than the overseers or even the superintendent¹⁵, while the superintendent would have been astounded¹⁶ at the knowledge the weazened little coolie possessed¹⁷ of the reduction processes in the mill.  But Ah Chun did not study only sugar processes.  He studied to find out how men came to be owners of sugar mills and plantations.  One judgment he achieved early, namely, that men did not become rich from the labour of their own hands.  He knew, for he had laboured for a score of years himself.  The men who grew rich did so from the labour of the hands of others.  That man was richest who had the greatest number of his fellow creatures toiling¹⁹ for him.
 
So, when his term of contract was up, Ah Chun invested his savings²⁰ in a small importing store, going into partnership²¹ with one, Ah Yung.  The firm ultimately became the great one of “Ah Chun and Ah Yung,” which handled anything from India silks and ginseng to guano islands and blackbird brigs.  In the meantime, Ah Chun hired out as cook.  He was a good cook, and in three years he was the highest-paid chef in Honolulu.  His career was assured, and he was a fool to abandon it, as Dantin, his employer, told him; but Ah Chun knew his own mind best, and for knowing it was called a triple-fool and given a present of fifty dollars over and above the wages due him.
 
The firm of Ah Chun and Ah Yung was prospering²².  There was no need for Ah Chun longer to be a cook.  There were boom times in Hawaii.  Sugar was being extensively planted, and labour was needed.  Ah Chun saw the chance, and went into the labour-importing business.  He brought thousands of Cantonese coolies into Hawaii, and his wealth began to grow.  He made investments.  His beady black eyes saw bargains where other men saw bankruptcy²³.  He bought a fish-pond for a song, which later paid five hundred per cent and was the opening wedge by which he monopolized²⁴ the fish market of Honolulu.  He did not talk for publication, nor figure in politics, nor play at revolutions, but he forecast events more clearly and farther ahead than did the men who engineered them.  In his mind’s eye he saw Honolulu a modern, electric-lighted city at a time when it straggled, unkempt and sand-tormented, over a barren reef of uplifted coral rock.  So he bought land.  He bought land from merchants who needed ready cash, from impecunious²⁵ natives, from riotous²⁶ traders’ sons, from widows and orphans²⁷ and the lepers deported²⁸ to Molokai; and, somehow, as the years went by, the pieces of land he had bought proved to be needed for warehouses²⁹, or coffee buildings, or hotels.  He leased, and rented, sold and bought, and resold again.
 
But there were other things as well.  He put his confidence and his money into Parkinson, the renegade captain whom nobody would trust.  And Parkinson sailed away on mysterious voyages in the little Vega.  Parkinson was taken care of until he died, and years afterward³⁰ Honolulu was astonished when the news leaked out that the Drake and Acorn³¹ guano islands had been sold to the British Phosphate Trust for three-quarters of a million.  Then there were the fat, lush days of King Kalakaua, when Ah Chun paid three hundred thousand dollars for the opium³² licence.  If he paid a third of a million for the drug monopoly, the investment was nevertheless a good one, for the dividends³³ bought him the Kalalau Plantation¹⁴, which, in turn, paid him thirty per cent for seventeen years and was ultimately sold by him for a million and a half.
 
It was under the Kamehamehas, long before, that he had served his own country as Chinese Consul—a position that was not altogether unlucrative; and it was under Kamehameha IV that he changed his citizenship³⁴, becoming an Hawaiian subject in order to marry Stella Allendale, herself a subject of the brown-skinned king, though more of Anglo-Saxon blood ran in her veins³⁵ than of Polynesian.  In fact, the random³⁶ breeds in her were so attenuated³⁷ that they were valued at eighths and sixteenths.  In the latter proportions was the blood of her great-grandmother, Paahao—the Princess Paahao, for she came of the royal line.  Stella Allendale’s great-grandfather had been a Captain Blunt, an English adventurer who took service under Kamehameha I and was made a tabu chief himself.  Her grandfather had been a New Bedford whaling captain, while through her own father had been introduced a remote blend of Italian and Portuguese³⁸ which had been grafted³⁹ upon his own English stock.  Legally a Hawaiian, Ah Chun’s spouse⁴⁰ was more of any one of three other nationalities.
 
And into this conglomerate⁴¹ of the races, Ah Chun introduced the Mongolian mixture.  Thus, his children by Mrs. Ah Chun were one thirty-second Polynesian, one-sixteenth Italian, one sixteenth Portuguese, one-half Chinese, and eleven thirty-seconds English and American.  It might well be that Ah Chun would have refrained from matrimony could he have foreseen the wonderful family that was to spring from this union.  It was wonderful in many ways.  First, there was its size.  There were fifteen sons and daughters, mostly daughters.  The sons had come first, three of them, and then had followed, in unswerving sequence, a round dozen of girls.  The blend of the race was excellent.  Not alone fruitful did it prove, for the progeny⁴², without exception, was healthy and without blemish⁴³.  But the most amazing thing about the family was its beauty.  All the girls were beautiful—delicately, ethereally beautiful.  Mamma Ah Chun’s rotund lines seemed to modify papa Ah Chun’s lean angles, so that the daughters were willowy without being lathy, round-muscled without being chubby⁴⁴.  In every feature of every face were haunting reminiscences of Asia, all manipulated over and disguised by Old England, New England, and South of Europe.  No observer, without information, would have guessed, the heavy Chinese strain in their veins; nor could any observer, after being informed, fail to note immediately the Chinese traces.
 
As beauties, the Ah Chun girls were something new.  Nothing like them had been seen before.  They resembled nothing so much as they resembled one another, and yet each girl was sharply individual.  There was no mistaking one for another.  On the other hand, Maud, who was blue-eyed and yellow-haired, would remind one instantly of Henrietta, an olive brunette with large, languishing⁴⁵ dark eyes and hair that was blue-black.  The hint of resemblance that ran through them all, reconciling every differentiation⁴⁶, was Ah Chun’s contribution.  He had furnished the groundwork upon which had been traced the blended patterns of the races.  He had furnished the slim-boned Chinese frame, upon which had been builded the delicacies⁴⁷ and subtleties⁴⁸ of Saxon, Latin, and Polynesian flesh.
 
Mrs. Ah Chun had ideas of her own to which Ah Chun gave credence⁴⁹, though never permitting them expression when they conflicted with his own philosophic⁵⁰ calm.  She had been used all her life to living in European fashion.  Very well.  Ah Chun gave her a European mansion⁵¹.  Later, as his sons and daughters grew able to advise, he built a bungalow⁵², a spacious⁵³, rambling⁵⁴ affair, as unpretentious as it was magnificent.  Also, as time went by, there arose a mountain house on Tantalus, to which the family could flee when the “sick wind” blew from the south.  And at Waikiki he built a beach residence on an extensive site so well chosen that later on, when the United States government condemned⁵⁵ it for fortification purposes, an immense sum accompanied the condemnation⁵⁶.  In all his houses were billiard and smoking rooms and guest rooms galore, for Ah Chun’s wonderful progeny was given to lavish⁵⁷ entertainment.  The furnishing was extravagantly⁵⁸ simple.  Kings’ ransoms⁵⁹ were expended⁶⁰ without display—thanks to the educated tastes of the progeny.
 
Ah Chun had been liberal in the matter of education.  “Never mind expense,” he had argued in the old days with Parkinson when that slack mariner⁶¹ could see no reason for making the Vega seaworthy; “you sail the schooner⁶², I pay the bills.”  And so with his sons and daughters.  It had been for them to get the education and never mind the expense.  Harold, the eldest⁶³-born, had gone to Harvard and Oxford⁶⁴; Albert and Charles had gone through Yale in the same classes.  And the daughters, from the eldest down, had undergone their preparation at Mills Seminary in California and passed on to Vassar, Wellesley, or Bryn Mawr.  Several, having so desired, had had the finishing touches put on in Europe.  And from all the world Ah Chun’s sons and daughters returned to him to suggest and advise in the garnishment⁶⁵ of the chaste⁶⁶ magnificence of his residences.  Ah Chun himself preferred the voluptuous⁶⁷ glitter of Oriental display; but he was a philosopher, and he clearly saw that his children’s tastes were correct according to Western standards.
 
Of course, his children were not known as the Ah Chun children.  As he had evolved from a coolie labourer to a multi-millionaire, so had his name evolved.  Mamma Ah Chun had spelled it A’Chun, but her wiser offspring had elided the apostrophe and spelled it Achun.  Ah Chun did not object.  The spelling of his name interfered⁶⁸ no whit⁷⁰ with his comfort nor his philosophic calm.  Besides, he was not proud.  But when his children arose to the height of a starched⁷¹ shirt, a stiff collar, and a frock coat, they did interfere⁶⁹ with his comfort and calm.  Ah Chun would have none of it.  He preferred the loose-flowing robes of China, and neither could they cajole nor bully⁷² him into making the change.  They tried both courses, and in the latter one failed especially disastrously⁷⁴.  They had not been to America for nothing.  They had learned the virtues⁷⁵ of the boycott⁷⁶ as employed by organized labour, and he, their father, Chun Ah Chun, they boycotted⁷⁷ in his own house, Mamma Achun aiding and abetting⁷⁸.  But Ah Chun himself, while unversed in Western culture, was thoroughly⁷⁹ conversant⁸⁰ with Western labour conditions.  An extensive employer of labour himself, he knew how to cope with its tactics.  Promptly⁸¹ he imposed a lockout on his rebellious⁸² progeny and erring⁸³ 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 complacent⁸⁴ 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 slippers⁸⁵, 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 civilians⁸⁶ on the broad verandas⁸⁷ or in the smoking room.
 
Ah Chun occupied a unique position in Honolulu.  Though he did not appear in society, he was eligible⁸⁸ anywhere.  Except among the Chinese merchants of the city, he never went out; but he received, and he always was the centre of his household and the head of his table.  Himself peasant, born Chinese, he presided over an atmosphere of culture and refinement⁸⁹ second to none in all the islands.  Nor were there any in all the islands too proud to cross his threshold and enjoy his hospitality.  First of all, the Achun bungalow was of irreproachable⁹⁰ tone.  Next, Ah Chun was a power.  And finally, Ah Chun was a moral paragon............