T h e K i n g ' s
B u s i n e s s
October 1930
4 6 9
Though ye have lain among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings o f a dove covered with silver and her feathers with yellow gold” (Psalm 68:13).
« AWRENCE was lost in Hollywood. It was no fun either! Lost in the hills—the peculiar, bare, residential hills of Hollywood! The address that he held in his hand was fair enough: 2220 Violet Vale Drive, but at number 1868, Violet Vale Drive ended, apparentlty, in a high picturesque brick wall. This wall enclosed a veritable park with green sloping lawns and beds of flowers, and clumps of shade trees. The park evidently lay about a house of some dimensions. This was all very well, but what had become of Violet Vale Drive? And where was number 2220? ■ “ ’S the way all the streets act in this town,” he grum bled to himself, as he stood in the warm afternoon’s sun shine and pondered. “ Twenty-two-twenty Violet Vale Drive. Ends in a brick wall. Just a footpath running alongside. Well, let’s try that!” But the path ended vaguely in a hedge. Lawrence struggled through this and walked until he found himself on a short street entitled Cherry Blossom Place. This ended hopelessly in a pocket; its other end lost itself in Enderly Drive which led him into Chrysanthemum Terrace. This was enough! Law rence took off his new panama hat, disclosing the curly golden brown crop of hair which he detested, and mopped his brow. “ If they would only have a little more system, even at the trifling cost of some of the picturesqueness!” he ex claimed. Back again to Violet Vale Drive he went, where an idea was waiting. “ Some of the residents here must know what becomes of Violet Vale Drive, when it hits that wall,” reasoned Lawrence to himself as he ascended the steps of a yellow house with buff trimmings, and plied the very antique brass knocker which hung below a little grated window on a distinctly daffodil door. The next house was tinted green, and the next blue! “ If they had tried, they might have achieved all the prismatic colors and called it Rainbow Street,” mused Lawrence as he waited.; The door did not open but the little window behind the grating did. The glass was pushed silently back and an oriental face appeared. “ Must be the Chinese cook,” Lawrence thought. But after a second glance, the intelligent almpnd-shaped eyes and the politely inquiring expression of the face made him wonder if this could be true. “ I am lost!” Lawrence explained. “Are you? Well I can tell you how to be saved right here in horrible Hollywood—the home of the silver screen!” Lawrence gasped. He, a leading member of the Thin Red Line, was actually being dealt with as to his soul’s
salvation by one whom he had considered “ a heathen Chinese” ! He was further startled by a genuine voice which spoke with the flat accent of the middlewest. “ Pansy! The Yellow Peril is at it again. Help!” Pansy had the typical pallor of the silver screen col ony. It was an artificial pallor. Her hair was a brazen gold and it was bobbed and permanently waved. Lawrence could see all this through the grating. She did not look at him at all, however, but addressed the Chinese boy directly. . “ Now Mr. Wu,” she said coaxingly, “I thought I made it clear you wasn’t to do this sort of thing.” Mr. Wu’s English was better than Pansy’s which was distinctly bad, Lawrence thought. “ And I,” Mr. Wu exclaimed, “ I have made it clear that I must and will be about my Father’s business.” Pansy’s expressionless pallor did not vary, but a new voice broke in. “ Good land, child ! Let the boy tell about his religion if he wants. I like to hear him.” 1 And Pansy replied, “ Don’t interfere, Aunt Mary!” Aunt .Mary had come up behind Lawrence, with her arms full o f newly purchased groceries. “ Open that door, please,” she requested. Then turn ing to Lawrence, “ And you, young man, whoever you are, I like your looks ! Don’t stand out there in the blazing sun, but come in and rest a while. Where I come from, back in Indiana, they still believe in hospitality,” Lawrence again removed the new. panama and meekly followed Aunt Mary into the house. “ Sit down while I get rid of these,” she said. Lawrence looked about him. It was a strange room. The furniture was all black. The rug was black. The floor was a deep yellow; the telephone was dressed up like a doll, compelling one to talk into a sunbonnet. The chairs were low and apparently composed of cubes. The table was a cube—a disappointed cube. It just fell short of being one because it must needs slope in at the base. It was very low and around it were four stools that looked like great over grown square lumps of sugar painted black and cushioned in yellow. The tea set upon the table was, composed of yellow octogon-shaped cups, with a teapot that closely re sembled a model of a certain famous New York sky scraper. Lawrence was wondering if the teaspoons were also square when Pansy and Aunt Mary returned. “ I want to apologize for our Chinese boy,” Pansy began. “ He’s only queer on one point, and that’s religion. He was brought up in a Missionary—what do you call it? Oh! a compound, he says, and so he don’t know any better.”
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