CHAPTER XIVBARGAINING"I thought you would come," said the hard, dry voice of Peter Bolton, as he leaned back in his chair and surveyed me with a sardonic smile."Why, yes," I replied cheerfully. "Jim Morgan told me that you wanted to see me, and I took chances on his telling the truth." As Jim Morgan was the prize-fighter who was at the head of Bolton's bureau of private information and defense, I had reason to assume that he spoke by authority.Peter Bolton looked at me suspiciously, and then gave grudging acknowledgment of Morgan's agency."I never write," he grumbled. "You never know whose hands a letter will fall into.""A very prudent rule," I returned.He shook his head slowly, drew down the corners of his mouth, and rubbed his hands."Well, I suppose by this time you are about ready to take up with my offer," he said with a look of shrewd cunning."Your offer? I really didn't know that you had made one," I answered.His cold blue eyes looked searchingly into my face for a minute. Then he said:"You'll find it best to take up with my terms. I don't know what salary you're getting from Kendrick, but you're going to lose it.""I didn't expect to keep it for ever. Did Mr. Kendrick tell you he was going to discharge me?""Tell me?" began Peter Bolton with a sarcastic leer. "He didn't have to. I've got better information than he can give. Your man Kendrick is going broke within the next thirty days, and he won't have any use for that fine herd of clerks he has been keeping."As Peter Bolton evidently expected me to comment on this prophecy, I murmured that I was sorry to hear it."You needn't be," said he with an attempt to be amiable. "I'll take care of you.""You are very kind," I said. "But how do you know that Wharton Kendrick is going under?""How do I know?" he returned with something of passion under his drawling tone. "Why, I know your man Kendrick like a book. I've known him for forty years. I've watched his business. I've watched him. Oh, he can fool you fellows with his smirking face, and his open-handed way of throwing money about. But I know that it's borrowed money, and the man who makes a show on borrowed money comes to the end of it some day, doesn't he?" Bolton ended querulously, as though he was making complaint against Wharton Kendrick for not having gone into bankruptcy long before."Oh, I think you are mistaken," I said. "Mr. Kendrick is known to be very rich.""Reported to be very rich, you mean," he said in his most sarcastic drawl."Oh, there's no doubt about it," I returned warmly. I hoped to provoke him into saying more than he intended.Peter Bolton took up the challenge."Why, young man," he cried, his voice rising into a cracked treble, "he owes money he can't pay. There's five hundred thousand dollars of his notes in that safe there," and he pointed to the solid front of the burglar-defying case. "They fall due pretty soon--some of 'em are due now--and he can't meet 'em.""Do you mean to say that he has borrowed money of you?" I asked in amazement."I didn't say that," he replied cautiously. "But there are the notes. They're signed by Wharton Kendrick, and they call for five hundred thousand. When they're presented he can't pay 'em, and I suppose I'll lose my money. I have bad luck about losing money." He shook his head ruefully, and drew down the corners of his mouth as sourly as though he saw the almshouse at the end of his road."Oh," I said hopefully, "you'll get it, I'm sure. Mr. Kendrick has a lot of property, and if he hasn't the money, he can borrow it."This assurance was less pleasing than the prospect of loss that had soured his face but a minute before."I know what property he has, young man, a good, deal better than you do," he said sharply. "And there's more paper of his in the banks--I guess it's all of two hundred and fifty thousand, maybe more. Money's getting pretty tight now, pretty tight, and Kendrick's about at the end of his rope. When he goes down, you'll want a place to fall on." He looked at me ingratiatingly, and as I said nothing, he continued:"Now, I want to see that you're taken care of. You shan't lose anything when the smash comes, if you just follow my instructions.""It's very kind of you to take so much interest in me," I began with an echo of his own sarcasm, when he interrupted."Oh, I ain't such a hard man as some people say. I want to do you a good turn, and maybe you'll help me out. I'm a liberal employer to men who give me the right sort of service. Now you're trying to be a lawyer--"I confessed that I hoped to do something in that line."And I've got a little legal business to attend to," he continued, "and I want to know what you'd consider a fair fee.""Why," I said, "it depends, for one thing, on the work to be done, and for another on the amount of money we think the fellow has."Peter Bolton looked at me in alarm."Oh, I have very little money, very little money," he said quickly."Except for such little items as five hundred thousand in Kendrick's notes, that you were just mentioning.""Oh, them. Well, I'm expecting to lose that money, and a man who loses five hundred thousand feels pretty tight pinched.""Now, as for the work to be done, if it were overlooking the Council of Nine and the anti-coolie agitation--""Anti-coolie agitation!" he exclaimed angrily. "I don't know anything about an anti-coolie agitation.""Oh," said I apologetically, "I supposed you knew what Waldorf and Parks and Kearney were doing with the money you gave them. Didn't they tell you about it when they were here last night?""I don't know what you are talking about!" he cried angrily, but I read in his eyes anxiety and surprise at the accuracy of my information."Now if it were looking after them, I should want a larger fee than for looking after your plans with Big Sam."A shade of gray passed over his face, and he held up one hand and gave me a malevolent look."Young Men talk a Good Deal of Nonsense," he said. "Now if you're through with your joke, we'll go back to talking Business." His sardonic voice showed that he was again thoroughly in command of himself, but I felt convinced that he was more eager than ever to secure my services. "Now what's your figure?""You haven't told me yet what you expect me to do."He looked about cautiously, and then studied my face for a little before he replied."I'll tell you what it is," he said slowly. "You are in charge of Kendrick's campaign. I want you to stay in charge of it, but to run it according to My orders instead of according to His orders.""How long do you think I could keep the job on those terms?" I asked. "You've known Mr. Kendrick forty or fifty years. You must have got the impression in that time that he isn't altogether a fool. How long do you think he would stand it? About long enough to kick me out of his office, wouldn't he?""He'll stand it long enough to suit My purpose," replied Peter Bolton, his sardonic smile tightening the corners of his mouth. "My orders will be His orders until the day comes that I am ready to put my hand on him." He reached out his long, bony fingers cautiously, and then brought his palm down on his desk with a thump as though he were catching a luckless fly. "When the time comes, an hour will be enough," he continued. "All I want you to do is to bring His orders to Me, before you carry them out. Then do as I tell you." His jaws closed with a snap, as though they were a trap, and Wharton Kendrick were between them."That sort of legal advice is worth a good deal of money," I said. "You can afford to pay well for it, for you'll make a big clean-up. I'll have to be paid well for it, for if it were to be found out, I could never do any more business in this town."Peter Bolton gave me a shrewd look, as though he thought he was sure of me."I offered you Ten Thousand Dollars," he said, trying to make the sum sound very large, "but I won't stick at a thousand or two more. I'm not a close man with those I like--""It's worth a good deal more," I interrupted. He looked disappointed. Then he studied the desk, and appeared to be making up his mind to some great sacrifice."Well," he said slowly and grudgingly, "name your figure.""I should think fifty thousand dollars was about right."Peter Bolton gave a shudder, and pondered for a little. Then the shrewd look came again into his eyes, and he said:"I'll be liberal, and give you more than it's worth. I'll pay you One Thousand Dollars a week for the next four weeks, and on the day that Wharton Kendrick makes his assignment, I'll give you Twenty-Five Thousand Dollars. I wouldn't do it for any one else, but I want to see that you don't lose anything."I understood from this outburst of verbal generosity how much he overestimated my share in Wharton Kendrick's affairs."Well, I'll think it over and let you know," I said, rising to escape. The pressure of my indignation had reached the danger point, and I felt that if I sat there another minute my honest opinion would burst forth in words that would put an end to further hopes of getting any revelations out of him."You'd better take it now," he urged, with a shadow of disappointment on his face. "It's a good offer, and I might find some one else to take it up by to-morrow.""Oh, I'll take the risk," I returned. "I have a monopoly on this business, and you know it, and I can take what time I please.""Just as you like, young man, just as you like," he said in his sarcastic drawl. "But look out for your own interests. If you don't, I can tell you that Wharton Kendrick won't."Before he could deliver another homily on the folly of honesty and the importance of pursuing the interests of Number One, I hastened out of the office, with the thought that I had penetrated far into the evil designs of Peter Bolton at the cost of a good deal of self-respect.I soothed my indignant spirit with a walk that gave me time to assure myself that no spy was following me, and then bent my steps to Wharton Kendrick's offices to lay the case before my client. The accumulation of five hundred thousand dollars' worth of his notes in Peter Bolton's hands seemed to be a matter that might call for very serious consideration.I found Wharton Kendrick in his private room in converse with General Wilson, and the discussion appeared to have become heated. General Wilson's face gleamed like a great carbuncle, and Wharton Kendrick's ruddy cheeks were ruddier than ever with signs of temper."You can't do it, Kendrick," General Wilson was saying, with a wave of the hand. "I've been over every foot of that land that isn't too soft to stand on, and I'll tell you that you can't put in any such works.""I've had two first-class engineers go over it," replied Wharton Kendrick with equal positiveness, "and they say it can be done.""Engineers--engineers! What are they worth?" snorted General Wilson scornfully. "I've got two eyes, and they are good enough engineers for me.""You'll find 'em mighty expensive ones if you try to do business on their estimates," said Wharton Kendrick grimly. "Experts come high, but they are cheaper than your own guesswork. You can count it liberal of me to give you that information for nothing, for it cost me over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.""It's no use talking, Kendrick," said General Wilson positively. "When I'm right I know it, and all creation can't move me. That land of yours is no good to us unless we can get Bolton's piece with it. The two have got to be improved together or not at all. I'll tell you right now that the company won't pay any such price for your piece unless it can get the other, and Bolton won't sell just because he knows we've got to have it to make it a success.""What's that?" exclaimed Kendrick, looking grave. "Bolton won't sell?"General Wilson repeated his statement with characteristic vehemence."Did Bolton tell you that?""He couldn't have made it plainer if he had said it right out in so many words. He raised his price at the rate of a hundred thousand dollars a minute as soon as he heard that we wanted your land.""Ah, yes. I remember now that Hampden was telling me something of the sort." Wharton Kendrick shook his head over the information, and then turned to me. "Was there something you wanted?""Well," I said, hesitating in some embarrassment at General Wilson's presence, "I had an interview with a friend of yours this afternoon."The intonation in my voice was enough to give a hint of the identity of the friend, and he nodded his head in comprehension."Well, come up to the house to-night, and give me the whole story. It'll keep till then, won't it? By the way, what was that hullaballoo around the place last night? It waked me up, but I was too lazy to turn out and take a hand in it.""Perhaps you heard my men when they caught three fellows climbing over the back fence, along in the early hours this morning. I don't think of anything else that happened.""Well, upon my soul," gasped General Wilson, "isn't that enough? Good heavens, young man, you speak as though it was something a gentleman might expect as a common attention from his neighbors!""It's a first experience," said Wharton Kendrick with a jovial laugh. "But why didn't you tell me about it? If I'm an attraction to burglars, I think I'm entitled to know it.""I didn't intend to make a secret of it; but you weren't in when I called this morning. Besides, I haven't run the thing down to its source and origin."General Wilson's red face flamed with wonder and he stared at me from under his bushy brows."Are you trying to tell us that they weren't burglars?" He fired the question at me very much as if it were a revolver, with the professional air of a lawyer who has caught a witness trying to deceive."To be truthful, I was trying not to tell you," I replied. "But if you put it to me direct, I should say they were not.""Fire away," said Kendrick, as I paused. "There's nothing about it that Wilson shouldn't hear.""Well," I continued, "two of them got away, but the boys held on to the third, and hauled me out of bed at three o'clock this morning to find out what was to be done with him. He protested that he was an innocent citizen on his way home from an over-convivial evening. But as he couldn't explain what he was doing in your back yard at that time of night, we took him down to the police station. Instead of finding him in the jailbird class, he turned out to be a small politician out of a job. Just now he figures as sergeant-at-arms of the Twelfth Ward Anti-Coolie Club.""The Anti-Coolie Club?" said Wharton Kendrick, wrinkling his brows. "I don't see what an anti-coolie club could want to do to me. I'm pretty well qualified for membership myself."General Wilson's face flamed redder than before, in the frame of his aggressive side-whiskers, and he smote the desk with his fist."Good Lord, Kendrick! You don't mean to tell me that you take any stock in such riotous nonsense as these anti-coolie fellows here are getting off! Why, I was listening to one of them last night, and he roared like a bull-calf about the Chinese taking the bread out of the hands of the workmen, and split his lungs telling that the heathen must be driven into the sea. Why, sir, he made my blood boil, and if I was made provost-marshal of this town for one day, I'd bundle him and his crew down to the docks, and have them sailing over sea before night came."Wharton Kendrick gave a good-humored laugh."My dear Wilson, I don't take much stock in the loud-mouthed orators, but I say, with them, that if we are to have the choice of a white or a yellow civilization in California, my vote goes to the white.""Stuff and nonsense!" cried General Wilson, thumping the desk once more. "Why, my dear sir, you challenge the fundamental principles of this government when you say we must shut out these men merely because their skins are yellow. Why, sir, it is to our advantage, not to our detriment, that they work for small wages. The lower their wages, the less money they take out of the country, and when they go home they leave behind them the great works they have accomplished. God has given you illimitable resources, and you are crying out for hands to develop them, and here you are, ready to shut out the most plentiful and cheapest supply of labor that exists on the face of the green earth. It's against business principles and it's against the principles of humanity, and you can never do it, sir--never.""Oh, fudge, Wilson, you don't know anything about the problem, and yet you come here telling us old Californians what we ought to think about it. I'll admit anything you say in favor of the coolies. They're industrious and faithful and cheap; but they're more than that. The Chinese can drive us out of any line they want to take up. I've seen that done too many times to doubt it any longer.""Well, if they can do it, why shouldn't they?" cried General Wilson. "Survival of the fittest--isn't that the law of nature? If the white race can't stand the competition, let it perish. But it won't perish. It'll manufacture things to sell to the Chinese, and trade will go on whether the white or the yellow man settles this coast.""That may be all right for you fellows in the East; but even there you'll be hit. Just ask yourself which would be more profitable as customers, a million Chinese who spend ten cents a day on their supplies, or a million whites who spend a dollar?""Sophistry, sophistry, Kendrick!" puffed the general, apparently impressed by the illustration. "But why go after the Chinese alone? I was in Castle Garden a month ago, and the fellows they let through there are every whit as un-American as the Chinese. Why don't you holler about them?""Why," said Kendrick, "we're hollering about the pigs in our corn. You're the fellows to look out for the other side of the continent.""Why don't we try to keep them out?" cried General Wilson. "Why, it's because we've got to have cheap labor for our mines and mills and railroads. We need it just as we need machinery, and we've got to take the disadvantages with the benefits, and no loud-mouthed agitator can deprive us of the right to get our workmen in the cheapest market. It's the law of trade, the fundamental principle at the bottom of political economy--the science on which the development of civilization must depend--"General Wilson's oration was suddenly cut short by an outburst of sound from the street below, and with common instinct we hastened to the window to view the cause of the hubbub. On the pavement was a crowd of five or six hundred men, moving slowly up California Street, circling with cries of anger or derision about some indistinguishable center of attraction. The outer fringe of the crowd was constantly breaking into sprays of individuals who ran forward to secure a position in front, while those behind tried to leap on the shoulders of those before them, and the center was an effervescent mass of arms, heads and clubs.The nucleus of disturbance, I was at last able to make out, was composed of two policemen dragging a hatless man between them."Oh," said Wharton Kendrick, "it's nothing worse than an attempt to lynch some fellow who's been caught at his crime. I suppose he's killed a woman, or something of the sort. But the police will get him to prison easily enough. There's never nerve enough in one of these crowds to take such a fellow and hang him.""They ought to string 'em up on the spot," snapped General Wilson. Then repenting suddenly of this unprofessional exclamation, he added: "But the majesty of the law must be upheld. It is the shield of the innocent and the sword of the righteous.""Um-m, yes, I suppose so," said Kendrick doubtingly. "But all this doesn't settle that matter of the tule tract. I'll see you to-night, Hampden. The general and I must talk business now."CHAPTER XVA RIPPLE OF TROUBLEThe brawling of many voices filled the air as I ran down the stairs, spurred by curiosity and by a vague, subconscious misgiving that the event was of more than impersonal interest. When I reached the entrance the circling crowd was halted in a mass of struggling men, and the hoarse roar that issued from it vibrated with the indefinable yet definite thrill of savage anger. Police whistles were blowing, men were running from all directions to get sight of the struggle, blows given and taken could be heard amid sounds of curses and exclamations of pain, and the centers of disturbance became pyramids of squirming, struggling mankind.As I reached the street, Parks burst out of the crowd, his hat gone, his long hair tumbled in aggressive disorder, his face flushed, and his clothing bearing evidences of his violent passage through the mob. Behind him came Seabert, whom I knew for a member of the Council of Nine. Between them they dragged and pushed an old man, white-faced, frightened, who looked in helpless amazement on the turbulence about him. The old man's face stirred vague reminiscence of the familiar, but for the moment I could not trace these promptings of memory to their source."Here!" cried Parks, as they burst out of the struggling circle and flung their burden into the hands of a knot of men who stood by an express-wagon near at hand, "get him down to Number Two."As the old man was sent staggering forward, helpless, trembling, perplexed, the men circled around him, lifted him in their arms, and in a moment had climbed into the wagon and were going on a gallop down California Street.It had all been done in the time I had taken to pass from the door of the office building to the edge of the sidewalk. I pushed into the roadway and hailed Parks by name. He had snatched a hat from one of the men who climbed into the wagon, and was hastily removing the signs of conflict from his dress."What's the matter here?" I cried, when I saw that he recognized me."Matter!" he cried. "Matter enough! There has been an interference with the natural right of a man to present his grievance to his fellow-man. It has been properly resented.""I don't understand you," I said. "Who was the old man you rescued from the mob?"Parks looked at me in surprise. "Rescued from the mob!" he exclaimed. "Why, the mob--but wait a minute, and I'll tell you about it."He turned as he spoke."Stop that fighting!" he shouted. And at his word a score of men lent their efforts to the task of separating the struggling, wrestling groups, raising the prostrate and quieting the violent.The efforts of the peacemakers were signally assisted by the sudden appearance of a squad of police coming on the run around the corner from Montgomery Street. As the guardians of order were strong of limb, and were armed with heavy clubs, they had exemplary success in quieting the refractory, and satisfying those whose appetite for fighting was still unsated.At the sight of the police, Parks took me by the arm and drew me quietly down the block and around the corner into Sansome Street."What was the trouble about, and who was the old man?" I asked."Why, that was Merwin," said Parks in a tone of surprise. "You ought to recollect him."At the name I remembered the quiet, dreamy old man of my visit to the House of Blazes, and recalled the history of his life-wreck which was wrapped up in the volumes of legal lore that went under the title of Merwin versus Bolton."What had Merwin been doing to get the mob after him?" I asked."To get the mob after him!" exclaimed Parks in great indignation. "To get the police after him, you mean.""The police!" I exclaimed in my turn. "Oh, he was the man under arrest, then?""It was an outrage of arbitrary power," said Parks, flushing angrily, "and the people have shown what they think of it. He has been taken out of the hands of those petty tyrants, and it will be a long time before he falls into them again.""What was the charge?" I asked, at a loss to imagine what crime could have been committed by this inoffensive wreck of a man."He was arrested," said Parks indignantly, "for exercising the right of free speech.""Free speech is rather an elastic term," I said. "What was he talking about?""The only thing he knows anything about," said Parks. "That's his case.""Well, it is a subject that might call out rather strong language, but I don't see just how that could bring him afoul of the police.""Sir," cried Parks, "it could happen only through the exercise of arbitrary power. The point of the thing is that the Supreme Court this afternoon handed down its sixth decision in his suit against Bolton. The judgment against Bolton is reversed, and the case sent back for a new trial.""What a shame!" I said, remembering the justice of Merwin's claim, the ruin of his life, and his long fight against the wealth and malignity of Peter Bolton."It is outrageous!" exclaimed Parks vehemently; "as scandalous as the open sale of justice to the highest bidder. Those men should be dragged from the bench, and driven through the streets in a cart, with their price for rendering such a judgment placarded on their backs. The judges were bought and justice was sold.""No, no," I protested. "The men on the bench may be wrong-headed, small-minded, pettifogging, but not corrupt--believe me, not corrupt."Parks looked at me with a pitying shake of his head."You are welcome to your opinion," he said, "but it isn't mine. However, it doesn't matter. The court has driven another nail in the coffin of the present social order.""But how did this decision get Merwin into the hands of the police? Did he go around to the courtrooms and tell the justices what he thought of them?""No, indeed!" said Parks indignantly, "though I shouldn't have blamed him if he had. He got up at our water-front meeting and, for the first time since I've known him, made a speech. It came hot from his tongue, too, telling the plain story of his case to his fellow-citizens. And what did the police do? Why, they arrested him for trying to incite a riot!"Parks paused as though waiting for my opinion on this exercise of police power."Well," I admitted, "the plain story of the case of Merwin against Bolton might very well sound like an attempt to stir the mob to violence.""It makes my blood boil, Hampden," cried Parks. "It's the stuff that revolutions are made of. The hirelings of Nob Hill know it, and that is why they trampled on the liberties of speech in the attempt to shut the mouth of the injured man.""Go on with your story. What happened after he was arrested?""Why, I wasn't there, so I don't know exactly how it was. But when Merwin was dragged off the cart, one of the boys ran over to headquarters with the news. As soon as I heard what was being done, I hurried over here with such men as I could get together. We found a big crowd following the two policemen who were dragging Merwin between them, but the men didn't know how to do anything but holler and ba-a. So I passed around the word that Merwin was to be taken out of the hands of the police. The crowd was ready to follow if any one would take the lead; so when I gave the signal the police were tumbled over in just one minute by the clock, we hustled our man to the wagon, and now I've had Merwin taken to a safe place.""My sympathies are with Merwin," I said, "but this rescue is a more serious matter than the arrest. It is resistance to the constituted authority of the law.""The constituted authority of the law!" said Parks contemptuously. "That's not the last resistance that will be roused against its tyranny and injustice. The day is at hand, sir, when this constituted authority of the law, as you call it, will be overthrown and scattered as easily as it was overturned a few minutes ago in the persons of its petty tyrants. Then a new and better authority will rise, founded on the will of the people, responsive to the people's needs, and protecting the people's interests."Parks had begun in a low tone of voice, as befitted one who had reasons for avoiding notice; but with his closing words he was once more the orator and prophet of the agitators, and I gave him a word of caution to save his breath for a less dangerous occasion. I saw nothing to be gained by arguing with him the folly of his plans of revolution. I could not hope to turn him from his purposes, and would only shut myself out from the chance of getting further information from him. Therefore I suppressed the remonstrance and advice that rose to my lips, and asked instead how the movement was progressing."Splendidly," replied Parks, with an enthusiastic shake of his head. "The cause of the people is advancing by leaps and bounds. Men are awakening to their rights, and responding to the efforts for their betterment. Our organization has gone into every district in the city. By to-morrow we shall be five thousand strong. Next week we extend our propaganda outside of San Francisco, and shall proceed to establish branches in every town in the state. To-night we invade the stronghold of aristocracy. At eight o'clock we hold a meeting on Nob Hill, at the corner of California and Mason Streets, to tell the nabobs what we think of them."We had reached the corner of Market and Sansome Streets and had halted for a little, when a hot and breathless man overtook us, and tapped Parks on the shoulder. For an instant the enthusiast thought that he was under arrest, for he whirled about with a fierce and determined look. If the man had been a policeman he would have had a difficult prisoner to handle. But there was no hostile intent in his face, and a look of recognition relaxed the tense lines of determination about Parks' mouth and eyes as he caught sight of him."Egbert and Baumgartner are arrested," whispered the man in gasps; and he drew Parks aside.There was a hurried conversation of which I caught but a word now and then, and I had time to wonder whether Parks would not presently share the fate of the two men he was now called upon to aid. It was not unlikely that a man of such conspicuous appearance had been recognized by the officers when Merwin had been snatched from their grasp. After a minute of whispered conversation, Parks turned to me, his face lighted with decision and excitement."I must leave you, Hampden," he said. "Let me see you at the meeting on Nob Hill to-night. The contest between plutocracy and the people may begin earlier than we have expected."And with these significant words he set off briskly in the direction of the House of Blazes.I digested Parks' hints with my dinner, and, getting no light from them, I took my way to Wharton Kendrick's house to deliver the postponed budget of information gained from my visit to Peter Bolton.The sun had just set upon the long July day, and the bright afterglow still forbade the use of lamps. And in the misgiving that I should come upon my client before he had finished his dinner, I was about to continue my stroll past the house when I saw the door open and some one walk in. As the door remained hospitably ajar, I changed my intention and climbed the steps. Before I reached the landing I heard an inner door close, and a moment later the voice of Miss Kendrick asked:"Well, what do you want?""You Miss Kenlick?" came the reply, with an unmistakable Chinese intonation."Yes, I am Miss Kendrick. What do you want of me?""You sabby China gell--nice li'l China gell?" The voice of the Chinaman was pitched in a fawning tone, offensive in the obsequiousness of its effort to win the confidence of the hearer.At the words I was startled with the thought that Big Sam had come to survey for himself the situation of Moon Ying with a possible view to her recapture. I was in two minds about my duty in the matter. Had I obeyed my first impulse I should have walked in and expressed my opinion of the attempt in unceremonious terms. But second thought suggested that Miss Kendrick might prefer to manage the affair without interference. A sudden wish to hear her match her wits against the diplomacy of the Oriental proved irresistible, and I determined to await an apparent need for intervention. Her first words reassured me of her ability to handle the situation."No," she replied calmly, with just the suspicion of a tremble in her voice, "we don't want any Chinese girl.""No--you sabby gell?" insisted the Chinese voice, with its fawning emphasis. "Nice li'l China gell?"If this was Big Sam, I should be compelled to compliment him on a marvelous control of his vocalization; and in curiosity to see if his bodily disguise was as complete as that of his voice, I peeped about the edge of the door till I caught sight of the oriental figure. My first glimpse of the man assured me that he was not Big Sam. He was small and bent, and gave an inimitable appearance of age. Whatever his capacity for masquerade, Big Sam could not have reduced his bulky form to this figure. The man turned his head a little, and I saw a wizened face, embellished with a mustache of coarse white hair, and scant chin-whiskers that might have belonged to an anemic billy-goat.Miss Kendrick's face was pale, but its firm expression was an index to her resolve to save Moon Ying from this creature at any cost."No," she repeated sharply, "we don't want a Chinese girl--or boy either. We never hire them. You go now." And with a gesture to the man-servant who stood beside her, she turned and was gone without a glance in my direction.The man-servant, in eager obedience to Miss Kendrick's hint, took the Chinaman by the shoulders, and amid protesting exclamations of "Wha' fo'? Wha' fo'?" ran him out of the hall, and started him down the steps, his speeding word to the departing guest taking the form of: "Get out of here, John, and if you come back I'll kick you out."Then suddenly catching sight of me, he recovered his breath and his dignity with a sudden effort."I beg your pardon, Mr. Hampden," he gasped. "I didn't know you was here. Mr. Kendrick is just done dinner. He's gone to his smoking-room. He said if you came I was to show you right in." And with a glance to see that the Chinaman had reached the sidewalk, he shut the door and led the way to the master of the house.I followed him mechanically, but my thoughts were far from the errand of Peter Bolton's schemes that had brought me hither. An insistent question ran through my mind in endless variations, but when reduced to words it took this form: "Where have I seen the face of the old Chinaman before?"CHAPTER XVILAYING DOWN THE LAWWharton Kendrick sat at his ease in smoking-jacket and slippers, but his brow was wrinkled with thought. The cigar that he held between his teeth gave evidence of his discomposure of mind, for it was unlighted, and one end of it had been reduced to the semblance of a cud. I had just delivered to him a conscientious account of my interview with Peter Bolton, and now observed the perturbant reflections that it had stirred."Was that all you could get out of the old rascal?" he said after an interval of silence."Why, yes," I replied. "I thought it was a pretty good afternoon's work; and indeed I am surprised that he told me so much.""Oh, thunder, Hampden, you're as easily taken in as the rest of 'em. Didn't I tell you that Peter Bolton is never in the place you're looking for him?""Why," I argued, somewhat piqued at this reception of my budget of information, "I thought he told a good deal about his plans--in fact, showed himself a garrulous old foozle instead of the shrewd fox you'd told me about.""My dear boy," said Wharton Kendrick with a pitying smile, "I'm grateful for your zeal, but the only thing he exposed was his desire to get you to betray me, and I might have guessed that without his telling it.""But that half-million of notes--""Doesn't it strike you, Hampden, that, as a business man, I might be expected to know something about the notes outstanding against me? You're right about one thing: I didn't know they had fallen into Bolton's hands, and I'll have a score to settle with the men who sold 'em to him. But I've got every piece of my paper recorded up here," and he tapped his forehead, "and I'll be prepared to take care of it as it falls due.""Well," I said ruefully, "I'm just one more victim of misplaced confidence in Peter Bolton.""Oh, you needn't feel ashamed of that, my boy," said Kendrick kindly. "Your time wasn't wasted. It's worth while to know that those notes are in the hands of an enemy. But that's a mere detail. Now if he had told you how he expects to keep me from meeting them when due--"Wharton Kendrick left his sentence suspended in the air, while he chewed his cigar for a minute or two."After all, Hampden," he continued, "I suspect he has pushed those notes forward to draw away attention from his real point of attack. He's figured on the possibility that you would bring me every word, and has found something to gain out of it, whether your final decision is to stand by me or to take up his offer. Now, about that offer? Are you prepared to accept his twenty-nine thousand for that trifling service he wants?""If I get it, I'll go halves with you when you're broke," I replied with an attempt at lightness that was far from a success. "But to tell you the truth, I don't like to discuss the thing, even in joke. It makes my gorge rise to hear a hint that I could take money for betraying you.""That's Dick Hampden's son," he returned, his face softening into a smile. "I could hear your father speaking then. But if you think I am worrying about your loyalty, just set your mind at rest."I thanked him for his certificate of confidence, and he continued:"You don't have to tell me that Bolton isn't the most agreeable company, but I'll be much obliged if you'll cultivate his acquaintance a little further.""Do you mean that you want me to pretend to accept his offer? I couldn't do that. I couldn't take his money.""Do you think you would get it?""He offered a thousand dollars a week. I'd get that as long as the job lasted.""Well, fix it up to suit yourself. But if you can find some way to keep him talking, you may get the one word that will join the different ends of his scheme together. Here we have his dealings with Big Sam and the Council of Nine, and his battery of notes ready to fire at me. A little more, and we may see his whole plan. Once I get that, I'll fix a scheme to scoop his pile out from under him so quick that he'll think an earthquake has struck him." And with this hint he excused me for the night.As I went out into the big hall, I looked regretfully at the library door, with a mental vision of the pleasure of spending an evening in converse with Miss Kendrick setting my pulses to beating. But with Spartan resolve, I crushed down my emotions with the notion that it was my duty to attend the Nob Hill meeting of the agitators."Oh, you aren't going without so much as saying 'How is Moon Ying?' are you?" said a piquant voice; and at the words, I turned to see Miss Kendrick coming down the stairs. Her light dress and graceful motions suggested the vision of a fairy floating down from some celestial region with the benevolent purpose of cheering the life of mortals--a purpose that met my instant and hearty approval. At the sound of her voice, the reasons that had drawn me toward the Nob Hill meeting were whisked away like so many scraps of paper before the summer breeze, and I stammered out some clumsy expression of my pleasure in remaining."Well," said Miss Kendrick, "I've heard that appearances are deceptive, and now I'm sure of it. You were a very good imitation of a man planning an escape." And she led the way into the library."There was something in the appearance," I said. "I was wishing to escape from the duty of going down town.""Oh, if it's a matter of duty, I shouldn't think of interfering.""I can't see now why I thought it so," I returned, "but I was suspecting there might be the chance of a fight.""Well, if there's to be any fighting," said Miss Kendrick in some alarm, "I'll give you a bit of advice, and that is to keep out of it.""There's to be a meeting of the anti-Chinese clubs to-night up by the Stanford-Hopkins houses, and it may start a riot," I explained. "I didn't know but I ought to go to it.""The curiosity of these men!" she sighed. "And they talk of the inquisitiveness of women. Why, you might have fifty riots, and you'd never see me going near one of them--not if I heard of it beforehand.""I hope not. But it isn't altogether curiosity that would lead me to attend.""You don't mean that you have any crazy idea of trying to stop the fighting if it begins?""Well, no.""Then you just leave the business of the police to the police," she said. "I'm beginning to believe that you need a guardian.""I believe so, too," I replied, with the thought that I saw a very desirable person for the place. I was tempted to say as much, but Miss Kendrick responded hastily:"I wouldn't envy him his position." Then she added: "I'm not sorry I interrupted you in your foolishness, but I shouldn't have done so if I hadn't wanted to take counsel with you."I wished she had chosen a more complimentary way of putting it, but professed myself all readiness to listen."There was a Chinaman here a little while ago," she began, and then she described in detail her interview with the little old man in the hall.As she told her tale my thoughts were busy with the insistent question--where had I seen the Chinaman before?"Now, what does that mean?" she demanded, when her tale was done.As she asked the question the problem was solved. A sudden picture flashed into my mind of the old Chinaman who had posed as the girl's father after she had been stolen."It means nothing, I think--some peddler with silk handkerchiefs to sell, perhaps," I replied, with an effort to put a careless indifference into my voice."You think nothing of the kind," said Miss Kendrick. "I don't see why you treat me like a child. I'm not a child, and I am wishing that you would discover it." She spoke with a little of wistfulness in her voice and manner. "Tell me honestly what you think about the visit of the Chinaman?" she said pleadingly.I reflected a minute on her request, and she broke forth in rapid words:"Do you think, if I am afraid, that you can make me confident by telling me that the dark won't bite me? Perhaps I am afraid--sometimes I do feel horribly scared--but don't you think I counted all the dangers before I made you bring poor little Moon Ying? There's one thing I'm more afraid of than all the rest of things put together, and that is the unknown thing. Let me know of a danger, and I'll be scared, and face it. But when I know it's there, and don't know what it is--that's the time I want to run. Now I saw in your face that you knew, or thought you knew, and were afraid. Please tell me what it is that you think."She looked into my eyes with such a mixture of pleading and command that my reluctance to confide my fears to her melted away."The man," I replied, "was beyond doubt the old pirate who had Moon Ying in charge for the Hop Sing Tong.""And you think he was on a reconnoitering expedition for his wicked society?""I have no doubt of it."She considered the matter with a grave face and downcast eyes, and I regretted that I had confided my fears to her so bluntly. Then she asked:"Do you think the highbinders will come here?""No, I don't. I do not believe there is courage enough in all the tongs in Chinatown to attack this house. They have a pretty clear idea of the sort of vengeance that would be taken on them, if they tried such a thing. The burning of Los Angeles' Chinatown was a lesson that they will remember a long time.""Do you think it possible that your wicked tongsters might hire some white men to do what they don't dare do themselves?"Miss Kendrick spoke in such tone that I demanded sharply:"What put that idea into your head?""I suppose I ought to have told you at first, but the fact is that it's just this minute I've put two and two together and made five out of them. Now this is the way of it: A little while before the old Chinaman was here, a white man came to the back door and asked for something to eat. The cook set out some victuals for him, but he didn't seem to have the appetite of a starving man. What he did have was a consuming curiosity about the family. After a good many questions, he asked if there were any Chinese about the place. The cook said 'No,' and then he asked if there wasn't a Chinese girl here. I can't get out of the cook just what she did tell him, but I have no doubt he had the whole story out of her. I'm sure the fellow knows this minute just what room the girl is in, and who waits on her, and what she has for dinner, and how many people are about the place, and whatever else he wanted to find out."I balanced my suspicions between the possibility that the fellow was a spy for the tongs, and the chance that he was an agent of the anti-coolie clubs, and then asked for a description of him."Well," said Miss Kendrick, "he's a most remarkable-looking creature, and I'm sure you ought to have no difficulty in finding him. I asked three of the servants who saw him, and took down their descriptions, and all you have to do is to look for a tall, short, middle-sized young man, with yellowish, brown, black hair, and black and blue (or possibly green) eyes, with and without a mustache, wearing a slouch derby hat, and dressed in dark, light-colored clothes--and then you'll have the man.""I'm sure the police ought to be able to lay their hands on him at once," I said. "But it's no matter. I can hardly imagine the tongs hiring a gang of burglars to steal the girl. However, I'll have men enough around here to give them other things to think about if they come near the house.""Well, then, I shall sleep easier," said Miss Kendrick with a sigh of relief. "It's a comfort to one's mind to know that there's some one looking after your safety. It's not strong-minded, but it's much more satisfying than having the responsibility one's self." She paid this tribute to the protecting hand of man with an infinitely charming condescension, and then at a sound from without changed her tone to earnest admonition: "And now I hear Mercy coming, and you're not to say a word of worriments.""Mum's the word," I replied, pleased to enter into the bonds of conspiracy; and a moment later Miss Fillmore entered, breathless, followed by Mr. Baldwin clothed in supercilious indignation."Why, what's the matter?" cried Miss Kendrick, starting up impulsively, and embracing Miss Fillmore."Oh, my dear," returned her friend in a disturbed voice, "it's nothing much, I think--" She hesitated in evident unwillingness to alarm her hostess, but Mr. Baldwin's indignation was repressed by no such consideration."It's another demonstration by Mr. Hampden's friends," he said with something of heat in his cold cynical voice. "That blatherskite Kearney has led a crowd of hoodlums up Nob Hill, and it looks as though there would be wild times before the night is over. We passed a gang of the riffraff a few minutes ago, and they were headed up California Street, yelling like wild Indians about burning down the Stanford and Hopkins places. It's a fine pass that this toleration of the worst elements has brought us to. There's just one way to deal with those fellows, and that's to call out the troops and mow them down. If we were under a city government that had the first notion of protecting life and property, it would have had the whole gang in jail without waiting for murder and arson."With this threat in the air, the Nob Hill meeting became a matter of immediate interest. If a riot should start at that point, it might be followed by an attack on the Van Ness Avenue district, and it evidently behooved me to judge for myself the temper and designs of the crowd."If my friends are engaged in any such desperate business, I'm afraid it's my duty to keep them from getting any further into mischief," I said; "so I'll bid you a good evening.""You don't mean you are going out into that mob, do you?" cried Miss Kendrick."That is my present purpose," I replied with some exultation at the anxiety betrayed in her tone and look."Well, I'm sure you're old enough to know better, but I see you are an obstinate man-creature, and it's no use to say anything to you. But when you get there, I hope you'll remember that you're not a regiment of soldiers, and leave the business of the police to the police.""Send word if you're arrested," said Mr. Baldwin scornfully, "and I'll see what can be done about bail."I bowed my thanks, and went out into the hall where I found Miss Fillmore awaiting me."Do you think Mr. Parks is in that mob?" she asked, with a charming air of embarrassment."I don't doubt it," I replied."He is so impulsive," she said. "I saw him this afternoon, and he was very much excited over something that happened to Mr. Merwin. I am very much afraid he will let his feelings run away with him to-night."There was a depth of anxiety in her eyes that Parks ought to have been proud to inspire, and even with the call of conflict urging me to be gone, I spoke a few words of comfort, and reflected on the mysteries of attraction that should draw together the gentle Mercy and the impassioned leader of revolt against society."If you find him to-night, try to restrain him," she pleaded. "It is his good heart--his sympathy with the suffering--that brings him into these troubles.""I shall do all I can," I promised.Outside the house, I stopped for a few minutes to see that my watchmen were on duty, and to learn if they had observed any signs of trouble."No," said Andrews, the head watchman, "there's been nothing worse than a gang of hoodlums going up toward Nob Hill, and yelling like Comanches. But one of 'em makes me a bit suspicious, for as he passes, he says, 'That's the house.' I says to myself that there's a chance he means this one, so I've cautioned the boys to be wide awake.""How many are on duty to-night?""Four besides myself--Reardon and Selfridge, Hunt and Carr.""Well, get two more to stand watch with you to-morrow night, and till further orders." And with Andrews' assurance that he knew two trustworthy men for the place, I ran down the steps and hastened up the street toward Nob Hill.As I reached the plateau, the meeting appeared to have resolved itself into small groups, that now scattered, now coalesced, and then scattered again, with shouts and cries of men. There were roars of anger followed by jeers, and shouted orders, and the elements of disorder circled hither and thither in aimless dispersion. Hoodlums elbowed me from the sidewalk. A policeman caught me by the arm and whirled me around with a curt order to "Git out of this now," and I recognized that the forces of law and order had replied to the challenge of the agitators.I pressed my way forward, by avoiding the scattered police, and at last reached the corner of Mason and California Streets by the Hopkins mansion. There was still a mob of a thousand or more, struggling about a shouting group, thinning from moment to moment, under the efforts of the police.I caught a glimpse of Parks, with mouth open and fist raised. Then he disappeared; a company of police appeared in the speaker's place, and the mob melted away with marvelous rapidity. The police formed in company front, swept along the block, and then with a right-about-face returned, and broke up into twos and threes in chase of groups of disorder.As the upper block was nearly cleared, I caught sight of a policeman with whom I had a nodding acquaintance."You've got a handful of trouble to-night," I said, as he paused for breath."Throuble by the armful," he said indignantly. "That blatherskite Kearney ought to be in the tanks, with all that gang of fish-horn shouters that follows him. He's making us more throuble than all the haythin divils between Goat Island and Washerwoman's Bay, and that's not sayin' a little.""I didn't get here in time to hear what he said."The policeman gave an indignant snort, and paused to order a trio of young men to "git home and out of here now.""Well," he said, turning to me again, "you needn't lose slape for what you've missed. He told that crowd of howling hoodlums that these houses here was built with the loot squeezed out of their pockets, whin hiven knows that they wouldn't do enough wurruk in tin thousand years to build wan side of that fince. Thin he says to 'em, 'What's the matter wid yez is thot the railroad hires the haythins instead of puttin' youse on the job'--as if those hoods would lave town and lift pick and shovel on the grade to save their sowls from the Ould Wan himself. An' at last he says, 'I give the leprous corporation jist thirty days to fire their haythin shovelers, an' if they don't, I'll lade yez up here to hang Stanford and Crocker out of their own windows, an' burn their houses on top of thim.' Thin some drunken hood yells, 'Hang 'em now!' An' with that we clubs 'em good and hard. Now we've got 'em on the run, an' we've got ordhers to keep 'em on the run till they've had enough.""Was Kearney arrested?" I asked."I think not, sor, but some of the gang with him was.""Is there any danger of an attack on the houses on Van Ness Avenue?""It don't look so, sor. The hoodlums don't seem to be looking above wash-houses now, an' most of thim are ready to hunt their holes. Well, good night to ye, sor. I must head off this gang here." And he ran up Mason Street flourishing his club in chase of a dozen venturesome boys.
CHAPTER XIV
BARGAINING
"I thought you would come," said the hard, dry voice of Peter Bolton, as he leaned back in his chair and surveyed me with a sardonic smile.
"Why, yes," I replied cheerfully. "Jim Morgan told me that you wanted to see me, and I took chances on his telling the truth." As Jim Morgan was the prize-fighter who was at the head of Bolton's bureau of private information and defense, I had reason to assume that he spoke by authority.
Peter Bolton looked at me suspiciously, and then gave grudging acknowledgment of Morgan's agency.
"I never write," he grumbled. "You never know whose hands a letter will fall into."
"A very prudent rule," I returned.
He shook his head slowly, drew down the corners of his mouth, and rubbed his hands.
"Well, I suppose by this time you are about ready to take up with my offer," he said with a look of shrewd cunning.
"Your offer? I really didn't know that you had made one," I answered.
His cold blue eyes looked searchingly into my face for a minute. Then he said:
"You'll find it best to take up with my terms. I don't know what salary you're getting from Kendrick, but you're going to lose it."
"I didn't expect to keep it for ever. Did Mr. Kendrick tell you he was going to discharge me?"
"Tell me?" began Peter Bolton with a sarcastic leer. "He didn't have to. I've got better information than he can give. Your man Kendrick is going broke within the next thirty days, and he won't have any use for that fine herd of clerks he has been keeping."
As Peter Bolton evidently expected me to comment on this prophecy, I murmured that I was sorry to hear it.
"You needn't be," said he with an attempt to be amiable. "I'll take care of you."
"You are very kind," I said. "But how do you know that Wharton Kendrick is going under?"
"How do I know?" he returned with something of passion under his drawling tone. "Why, I know your man Kendrick like a book. I've known him for forty years. I've watched his business. I've watched him. Oh, he can fool you fellows with his smirking face, and his open-handed way of throwing money about. But I know that it's borrowed money, and the man who makes a show on borrowed money comes to the end of it some day, doesn't he?" Bolton ended querulously, as though he was making complaint against Wharton Kendrick for not having gone into bankruptcy long before.
"Oh, I think you are mistaken," I said. "Mr. Kendrick is known to be very rich."
"Reported to be very rich, you mean," he said in his most sarcastic drawl.
"Oh, there's no doubt about it," I returned warmly. I hoped to provoke him into saying more than he intended.
Peter Bolton took up the challenge.
"Why, young man," he cried, his voice rising into a cracked treble, "he owes money he can't pay. There's five hundred thousand dollars of his notes in that safe there," and he pointed to the solid front of the burglar-defying case. "They fall due pretty soon--some of 'em are due now--and he can't meet 'em."
"Do you mean to say that he has borrowed money of you?" I asked in amazement.
"I didn't say that," he replied cautiously. "But there are the notes. They're signed by Wharton Kendrick, and they call for five hundred thousand. When they're presented he can't pay 'em, and I suppose I'll lose my money. I have bad luck about losing money." He shook his head ruefully, and drew down the corners of his mouth as sourly as though he saw the almshouse at the end of his road.
"Oh," I said hopefully, "you'll get it, I'm sure. Mr. Kendrick has a lot of property, and if he hasn't the money, he can borrow it."
This assurance was less pleasing than the prospect of loss that had soured his face but a minute before.
"I know what property he has, young man, a good, deal better than you do," he said sharply. "And there's more paper of his in the banks--I guess it's all of two hundred and fifty thousand, maybe more. Money's getting pretty tight now, pretty tight, and Kendrick's about at the end of his rope. When he goes down, you'll want a place to fall on." He looked at me ingratiatingly, and as I said nothing, he continued:
"Now, I want to see that you're taken care of. You shan't lose anything when the smash comes, if you just follow my instructions."
"It's very kind of you to take so much interest in me," I began with an echo of his own sarcasm, when he interrupted.
"Oh, I ain't such a hard man as some people say. I want to do you a good turn, and maybe you'll help me out. I'm a liberal employer to men who give me the right sort of service. Now you're trying to be a lawyer--"
I confessed that I hoped to do something in that line.
"And I've got a little legal business to attend to," he continued, "and I want to know what you'd consider a fair fee."
"Why," I said, "it depends, for one thing, on the work to be done, and for another on the amount of money we think the fellow has."
Peter Bolton looked at me in alarm.
"Oh, I have very little money, very little money," he said quickly.
"Except for such little items as five hundred thousand in Kendrick's notes, that you were just mentioning."
"Oh, them. Well, I'm expecting to lose that money, and a man who loses five hundred thousand feels pretty tight pinched."
"Now, as for the work to be done, if it were overlooking the Council of Nine and the anti-coolie agitation--"
"Anti-coolie agitation!" he exclaimed angrily. "I don't know anything about an anti-coolie agitation."
"Oh," said I apologetically, "I supposed you knew what Waldorf and Parks and Kearney were doing with the money you gave them. Didn't they tell you about it when they were here last night?"
"I don't know what you are talking about!" he cried angrily, but I read in his eyes anxiety and surprise at the accuracy of my information.
"Now if it were looking after them, I should want a larger fee than for looking after your plans with Big Sam."
A shade of gray passed over his face, and he held up one hand and gave me a malevolent look.
"Young Men talk a Good Deal of Nonsense," he said. "Now if you're through with your joke, we'll go back to talking Business." His sardonic voice showed that he was again thoroughly in command of himself, but I felt convinced that he was more eager than ever to secure my services. "Now what's your figure?"
"You haven't told me yet what you expect me to do."
He looked about cautiously, and then studied my face for a little before he replied.
"I'll tell you what it is," he said slowly. "You are in charge of Kendrick's campaign. I want you to stay in charge of it, but to run it according to My orders instead of according to His orders."
"How long do you think I could keep the job on those terms?" I asked. "You've known Mr. Kendrick forty or fifty years. You must have got the impression in that time that he isn't altogether a fool. How long do you think he would stand it? About long enough to kick me out of his office, wouldn't he?"
"He'll stand it long enough to suit My purpose," replied Peter Bolton, his sardonic smile tightening the corners of his mouth. "My orders will be His orders until the day comes that I am ready to put my hand on him." He reached out his long, bony fingers cautiously, and then brought his palm down on his desk with a thump as though he were catching a luckless fly. "When the time comes, an hour will be enough," he continued. "All I want you to do is to bring His orders to Me, before you carry them out. Then do as I tell you." His jaws closed with a snap, as though they were a trap, and Wharton Kendrick were between them.
"That sort of legal advice is worth a good deal of money," I said. "You can afford to pay well for it, for you'll make a big clean-up. I'll have to be paid well for it, for if it were to be found out, I could never do any more business in this town."
Peter Bolton gave me a shrewd look, as though he thought he was sure of me.
"I offered you Ten Thousand Dollars," he said, trying to make the sum sound very large, "but I won't stick at a thousand or two more. I'm not a close man with those I like--"
"It's worth a good deal more," I interrupted. He looked disappointed. Then he studied the desk, and appeared to be making up his mind to some great sacrifice.
"Well," he said slowly and grudgingly, "name your figure."
"I should think fifty thousand dollars was about right."
Peter Bolton gave a shudder, and pondered for a little. Then the shrewd look came again into his eyes, and he said:
"I'll be liberal, and give you more than it's worth. I'll pay you One Thousand Dollars a week for the next four weeks, and on the day that Wharton Kendrick makes his assignment, I'll give you Twenty-Five Thousand Dollars. I wouldn't do it for any one else, but I want to see that you don't lose anything."
I understood from this outburst of verbal generosity how much he overestimated my share in Wharton Kendrick's affairs.
"Well, I'll think it over and let you know," I said, rising to escape. The pressure of my indignation had reached the danger point, and I felt that if I sat there another minute my honest opinion would burst forth in words that would put an end to further hopes of getting any revelations out of him.
"You'd better take it now," he urged, with a shadow of disappointment on his face. "It's a good offer, and I might find some one else to take it up by to-morrow."
"Oh, I'll take the risk," I returned. "I have a monopoly on this business, and you know it, and I can take what time I please."
"Just as you like, young man, just as you like," he said in his sarcastic drawl. "But look out for your own interests. If you don't, I can tell you that Wharton Kendrick won't."
Before he could deliver another homily on the folly of honesty and the importance of pursuing the interests of Number One, I hastened out of the office, with the thought that I had penetrated far into the evil designs of Peter Bolton at the cost of a good deal of self-respect.
I soothed my indignant spirit with a walk that gave me time to assure myself that no spy was following me, and then bent my steps to Wharton Kendrick's offices to lay the case before my client. The accumulation of five hundred thousand dollars' worth of his notes in Peter Bolton's hands seemed to be a matter that might call for very serious consideration.
I found Wharton Kendrick in his private room in converse with General Wilson, and the discussion appeared to have become heated. General Wilson's face gleamed like a great carbuncle, and Wharton Kendrick's ruddy cheeks were ruddier than ever with signs of temper.
"You can't do it, Kendrick," General Wilson was saying, with a wave of the hand. "I've been over every foot of that land that isn't too soft to stand on, and I'll tell you that you can't put in any such works."
"I've had two first-class engineers go over it," replied Wharton Kendrick with equal positiveness, "and they say it can be done."
"Engineers--engineers! What are they worth?" snorted General Wilson scornfully. "I've got two eyes, and they are good enough engineers for me."
"You'll find 'em mighty expensive ones if you try to do business on their estimates," said Wharton Kendrick grimly. "Experts come high, but they are cheaper than your own guesswork. You can count it liberal of me to give you that information for nothing, for it cost me over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars."
"It's no use talking, Kendrick," said General Wilson positively. "When I'm right I know it, and all creation can't move me. That land of yours is no good to us unless we can get Bolton's piece with it. The two have got to be improved together or not at all. I'll tell you right now that the company won't pay any such price for your piece unless it can get the other, and Bolton won't sell just because he knows we've got to have it to make it a success."
"What's that?" exclaimed Kendrick, looking grave. "Bolton won't sell?"
General Wilson repeated his statement with characteristic vehemence.
"Did Bolton tell you that?"
"He couldn't have made it plainer if he had said it right out in so many words. He raised his price at the rate of a hundred thousand dollars a minute as soon as he heard that we wanted your land."
"Ah, yes. I remember now that Hampden was telling me something of the sort." Wharton Kendrick shook his head over the information, and then turned to me. "Was there something you wanted?"
"Well," I said, hesitating in some embarrassment at General Wilson's presence, "I had an interview with a friend of yours this afternoon."
The intonation in my voice was enough to give a hint of the identity of the friend, and he nodded his head in comprehension.
"Well, come up to the house to-night, and give me the whole story. It'll keep till then, won't it? By the way, what was that hullaballoo around the place last night? It waked me up, but I was too lazy to turn out and take a hand in it."
"Perhaps you heard my men when they caught three fellows climbing over the back fence, along in the early hours this morning. I don't think of anything else that happened."
"Well, upon my soul," gasped General Wilson, "isn't that enough? Good heavens, young man, you speak as though it was something a gentleman might expect as a common attention from his neighbors!"
"It's a first experience," said Wharton Kendrick with a jovial laugh. "But why didn't you tell me about it? If I'm an attraction to burglars, I think I'm entitled to know it."
"I didn't intend to make a secret of it; but you weren't in when I called this morning. Besides, I haven't run the thing down to its source and origin."
General Wilson's red face flamed with wonder and he stared at me from under his bushy brows.
"Are you trying to tell us that they weren't burglars?" He fired the question at me very much as if it were a revolver, with the professional air of a lawyer who has caught a witness trying to deceive.
"To be truthful, I was trying not to tell you," I replied. "But if you put it to me direct, I should say they were not."
"Fire away," said Kendrick, as I paused. "There's nothing about it that Wilson shouldn't hear."
"Well," I continued, "two of them got away, but the boys held on to the third, and hauled me out of bed at three o'clock this morning to find out what was to be done with him. He protested that he was an innocent citizen on his way home from an over-convivial evening. But as he couldn't explain what he was doing in your back yard at that time of night, we took him down to the police station. Instead of finding him in the jailbird class, he turned out to be a small politician out of a job. Just now he figures as sergeant-at-arms of the Twelfth Ward Anti-Coolie Club."
"The Anti-Coolie Club?" said Wharton Kendrick, wrinkling his brows. "I don't see what an anti-coolie club could want to do to me. I'm pretty well qualified for membership myself."
General Wilson's face flamed redder than before, in the frame of his aggressive side-whiskers, and he smote the desk with his fist.
"Good Lord, Kendrick! You don't mean to tell me that you take any stock in such riotous nonsense as these anti-coolie fellows here are getting off! Why, I was listening to one of them last night, and he roared like a bull-calf about the Chinese taking the bread out of the hands of the workmen, and split his lungs telling that the heathen must be driven into the sea. Why, sir, he made my blood boil, and if I was made provost-marshal of this town for one day, I'd bundle him and his crew down to the docks, and have them sailing over sea before night came."
Wharton Kendrick gave a good-humored laugh.
"My dear Wilson, I don't take much stock in the loud-mouthed orators, but I say, with them, that if we are to have the choice of a white or a yellow civilization in California, my vote goes to the white."
"Stuff and nonsense!" cried General Wilson, thumping the desk once more. "Why, my dear sir, you challenge the fundamental principles of this government when you say we must shut out these men merely because their skins are yellow. Why, sir, it is to our advantage, not to our detriment, that they work for small wages. The lower their wages, the less money they take out of the country, and when they go home they leave behind them the great works they have accomplished. God has given you illimitable resources, and you are crying out for hands to develop them, and here you are, ready to shut out the most plentiful and cheapest supply of labor that exists on the face of the green earth. It's against business principles and it's against the principles of humanity, and you can never do it, sir--never."
"Oh, fudge, Wilson, you don't know anything about the problem, and yet you come here telling us old Californians what we ought to think about it. I'll admit anything you say in favor of the coolies. They're industrious and faithful and cheap; but they're more than that. The Chinese can drive us out of any line they want to take up. I've seen that done too many times to doubt it any longer."
"Well, if they can do it, why shouldn't they?" cried General Wilson. "Survival of the fittest--isn't that the law of nature? If the white race can't stand the competition, let it perish. But it won't perish. It'll manufacture things to sell to the Chinese, and trade will go on whether the white or the yellow man settles this coast."
"That may be all right for you fellows in the East; but even there you'll be hit. Just ask yourself which would be more profitable as customers, a million Chinese who spend ten cents a day on their supplies, or a million whites who spend a dollar?"
"Sophistry, sophistry, Kendrick!" puffed the general, apparently impressed by the illustration. "But why go after the Chinese alone? I was in Castle Garden a month ago, and the fellows they let through there are every whit as un-American as the Chinese. Why don't you holler about them?"
"Why," said Kendrick, "we're hollering about the pigs in our corn. You're the fellows to look out for the other side of the continent."
"Why don't we try to keep them out?" cried General Wilson. "Why, it's because we've got to have cheap labor for our mines and mills and railroads. We need it just as we need machinery, and we've got to take the disadvantages with the benefits, and no loud-mouthed agitator can deprive us of the right to get our workmen in the cheapest market. It's the law of trade, the fundamental principle at the bottom of political economy--the science on which the development of civilization must depend--"
General Wilson's oration was suddenly cut short by an outburst of sound from the street below, and with common instinct we hastened to the window to view the cause of the hubbub. On the pavement was a crowd of five or six hundred men, moving slowly up California Street, circling with cries of anger or derision about some indistinguishable center of attraction. The outer fringe of the crowd was constantly breaking into sprays of individuals who ran forward to secure a position in front, while those behind tried to leap on the shoulders of those before them, and the center was an effervescent mass of arms, heads and clubs.
The nucleus of disturbance, I was at last able to make out, was composed of two policemen dragging a hatless man between them.
"Oh," said Wharton Kendrick, "it's nothing worse than an attempt to lynch some fellow who's been caught at his crime. I suppose he's killed a woman, or something of the sort. But the police will get him to prison easily enough. There's never nerve enough in one of these crowds to take such a fellow and hang him."
"They ought to string 'em up on the spot," snapped General Wilson. Then repenting suddenly of this unprofessional exclamation, he added: "But the majesty of the law must be upheld. It is the shield of the innocent and the sword of the righteous."
"Um-m, yes, I suppose so," said Kendrick doubtingly. "But all this doesn't settle that matter of the tule tract. I'll see you to-night, Hampden. The general and I must talk business now."
CHAPTER XV
A RIPPLE OF TROUBLE
The brawling of many voices filled the air as I ran down the stairs, spurred by curiosity and by a vague, subconscious misgiving that the event was of more than impersonal interest. When I reached the entrance the circling crowd was halted in a mass of struggling men, and the hoarse roar that issued from it vibrated with the indefinable yet definite thrill of savage anger. Police whistles were blowing, men were running from all directions to get sight of the struggle, blows given and taken could be heard amid sounds of curses and exclamations of pain, and the centers of disturbance became pyramids of squirming, struggling mankind.
As I reached the street, Parks burst out of the crowd, his hat gone, his long hair tumbled in aggressive disorder, his face flushed, and his clothing bearing evidences of his violent passage through the mob. Behind him came Seabert, whom I knew for a member of the Council of Nine. Between them they dragged and pushed an old man, white-faced, frightened, who looked in helpless amazement on the turbulence about him. The old man's face stirred vague reminiscence of the familiar, but for the moment I could not trace these promptings of memory to their source.
"Here!" cried Parks, as they burst out of the struggling circle and flung their burden into the hands of a knot of men who stood by an express-wagon near at hand, "get him down to Number Two."
As the old man was sent staggering forward, helpless, trembling, perplexed, the men circled around him, lifted him in their arms, and in a moment had climbed into the wagon and were going on a gallop down California Street.
It had all been done in the time I had taken to pass from the door of the office building to the edge of the sidewalk. I pushed into the roadway and hailed Parks by name. He had snatched a hat from one of the men who climbed into the wagon, and was hastily removing the signs of conflict from his dress.
"What's the matter here?" I cried, when I saw that he recognized me.
"Matter!" he cried. "Matter enough! There has been an interference with the natural right of a man to present his grievance to his fellow-man. It has been properly resented."
"I don't understand you," I said. "Who was the old man you rescued from the mob?"
Parks looked at me in surprise. "Rescued from the mob!" he exclaimed. "Why, the mob--but wait a minute, and I'll tell you about it."
He turned as he spoke.
"Stop that fighting!" he shouted. And at his word a score of men lent their efforts to the task of separating the struggling, wrestling groups, raising the prostrate and quieting the violent.
The efforts of the peacemakers were signally assisted by the sudden appearance of a squad of police coming on the run around the corner from Montgomery Street. As the guardians of order were strong of limb, and were armed with heavy clubs, they had exemplary success in quieting the refractory, and satisfying those whose appetite for fighting was still unsated.
At the sight of the police, Parks took me by the arm and drew me quietly down the block and around the corner into Sansome Street.
"What was the trouble about, and who was the old man?" I asked.
"Why, that was Merwin," said Parks in a tone of surprise. "You ought to recollect him."
At the name I remembered the quiet, dreamy old man of my visit to the House of Blazes, and recalled the history of his life-wreck which was wrapped up in the volumes of legal lore that went under the title of Merwin versus Bolton.
"What had Merwin been doing to get the mob after him?" I asked.
"To get the mob after him!" exclaimed Parks in great indignation. "To get the police after him, you mean."
"The police!" I exclaimed in my turn. "Oh, he was the man under arrest, then?"
"It was an outrage of arbitrary power," said Parks, flushing angrily, "and the people have shown what they think of it. He has been taken out of the hands of those petty tyrants, and it will be a long time before he falls into them again."
"What was the charge?" I asked, at a loss to imagine what crime could have been committed by this inoffensive wreck of a man.
"He was arrested," said Parks indignantly, "for exercising the right of free speech."
"Free speech is rather an elastic term," I said. "What was he talking about?"
"The only thing he knows anything about," said Parks. "That's his case."
"Well, it is a subject that might call out rather strong language, but I don't see just how that could bring him afoul of the police."
"Sir," cried Parks, "it could happen only through the exercise of arbitrary power. The point of the thing is that the Supreme Court this afternoon handed down its sixth decision in his suit against Bolton. The judgment against Bolton is reversed, and the case sent back for a new trial."
"What a shame!" I said, remembering the justice of Merwin's claim, the ruin of his life, and his long fight against the wealth and malignity of Peter Bolton.
"It is outrageous!" exclaimed Parks vehemently; "as scandalous as the open sale of justice to the highest bidder. Those men should be dragged from the bench, and driven through the streets in a cart, with their price for rendering such a judgment placarded on their backs. The judges were bought and justice was sold."
"No, no," I protested. "The men on the bench may be wrong-headed, small-minded, pettifogging, but not corrupt--believe me, not corrupt."
Parks looked at me with a pitying shake of his head.
"You are welcome to your opinion," he said, "but it isn't mine. However, it doesn't matter. The court has driven another nail in the coffin of the present social order."
"But how did this decision get Merwin into the hands of the police? Did he go around to the courtrooms and tell the justices what he thought of them?"
"No, indeed!" said Parks indignantly, "though I shouldn't have blamed him if he had. He got up at our water-front meeting and, for the first time since I've known him, made a speech. It came hot from his tongue, too, telling the plain story of his case to his fellow-citizens. And what did the police do? Why, they arrested him for trying to incite a riot!"
Parks paused as though waiting for my opinion on this exercise of police power.
"Well," I admitted, "the plain story of the case of Merwin against Bolton might very well sound like an attempt to stir the mob to violence."
"It makes my blood boil, Hampden," cried Parks. "It's the stuff that revolutions are made of. The hirelings of Nob Hill know it, and that is why they trampled on the liberties of speech in the attempt to shut the mouth of the injured man."
"Go on with your story. What happened after he was arrested?"
"Why, I wasn't there, so I don't know exactly how it was. But when Merwin was dragged off the cart, one of the boys ran over to headquarters with the news. As soon as I heard what was being done, I hurried over here with such men as I could get together. We found a big crowd following the two policemen who were dragging Merwin between them, but the men didn't know how to do anything but holler and ba-a. So I passed around the word that Merwin was to be taken out of the hands of the police. The crowd was ready to follow if any one would take the lead; so when I gave the signal the police were tumbled over in just one minute by the clock, we hustled our man to the wagon, and now I've had Merwin taken to a safe place."
"My sympathies are with Merwin," I said, "but this rescue is a more serious matter than the arrest. It is resistance to the constituted authority of the law."
"The constituted authority of the law!" said Parks contemptuously. "That's not the last resistance that will be roused against its tyranny and injustice. The day is at hand, sir, when this constituted authority of the law, as you call it, will be overthrown and scattered as easily as it was overturned a few minutes ago in the persons of its petty tyrants. Then a new and better authority will rise, founded on the will of the people, responsive to the people's needs, and protecting the people's interests."
Parks had begun in a low tone of voice, as befitted one who had reasons for avoiding notice; but with his closing words he was once more the orator and prophet of the agitators, and I gave him a word of caution to save his breath for a less dangerous occasion. I saw nothing to be gained by arguing with him the folly of his plans of revolution. I could not hope to turn him from his purposes, and would only shut myself out from the chance of getting further information from him. Therefore I suppressed the remonstrance and advice that rose to my lips, and asked instead how the movement was progressing.
"Splendidly," replied Parks, with an enthusiastic shake of his head. "The cause of the people is advancing by leaps and bounds. Men are awakening to their rights, and responding to the efforts for their betterment. Our organization has gone into every district in the city. By to-morrow we shall be five thousand strong. Next week we extend our propaganda outside of San Francisco, and shall proceed to establish branches in every town in the state. To-night we invade the stronghold of aristocracy. At eight o'clock we hold a meeting on Nob Hill, at the corner of California and Mason Streets, to tell the nabobs what we think of them."
We had reached the corner of Market and Sansome Streets and had halted for a little, when a hot and breathless man overtook us, and tapped Parks on the shoulder. For an instant the enthusiast thought that he was under arrest, for he whirled about with a fierce and determined look. If the man had been a policeman he would have had a difficult prisoner to handle. But there was no hostile intent in his face, and a look of recognition relaxed the tense lines of determination about Parks' mouth and eyes as he caught sight of him.
"Egbert and Baumgartner are arrested," whispered the man in gasps; and he drew Parks aside.
There was a hurried conversation of which I caught but a word now and then, and I had time to wonder whether Parks would not presently share the fate of the two men he was now called upon to aid. It was not unlikely that a man of such conspicuous appearance had been recognized by the officers when Merwin had been snatched from their grasp. After a minute of whispered conversation, Parks turned to me, his face lighted with decision and excitement.
"I must leave you, Hampden," he said. "Let me see you at the meeting on Nob Hill to-night. The contest between plutocracy and the people may begin earlier than we have expected."
And with these significant words he set off briskly in the direction of the House of Blazes.
I digested Parks' hints with my dinner, and, getting no light from them, I took my way to Wharton Kendrick's house to deliver the postponed budget of information gained from my visit to Peter Bolton.
The sun had just set upon the long July day, and the bright afterglow still forbade the use of lamps. And in the misgiving that I should come upon my client before he had finished his dinner, I was about to continue my stroll past the house when I saw the door open and some one walk in. As the door remained hospitably ajar, I changed my intention and climbed the steps. Before I reached the landing I heard an inner door close, and a moment later the voice of Miss Kendrick asked:
"Well, what do you want?"
"You Miss Kenlick?" came the reply, with an unmistakable Chinese intonation.
"Yes, I am Miss Kendrick. What do you want of me?"
"You sabby China gell--nice li'l China gell?" The voice of the Chinaman was pitched in a fawning tone, offensive in the obsequiousness of its effort to win the confidence of the hearer.
At the words I was startled with the thought that Big Sam had come to survey for himself the situation of Moon Ying with a possible view to her recapture. I was in two minds about my duty in the matter. Had I obeyed my first impulse I should have walked in and expressed my opinion of the attempt in unceremonious terms. But second thought suggested that Miss Kendrick might prefer to manage the affair without interference. A sudden wish to hear her match her wits against the diplomacy of the Oriental proved irresistible, and I determined to await an apparent need for intervention. Her first words reassured me of her ability to handle the situation.
"No," she replied calmly, with just the suspicion of a tremble in her voice, "we don't want any Chinese girl."
"No--you sabby gell?" insisted the Chinese voice, with its fawning emphasis. "Nice li'l China gell?"
If this was Big Sam, I should be compelled to compliment him on a marvelous control of his vocalization; and in curiosity to see if his bodily disguise was as complete as that of his voice, I peeped about the edge of the door till I caught sight of the oriental figure. My first glimpse of the man assured me that he was not Big Sam. He was small and bent, and gave an inimitable appearance of age. Whatever his capacity for masquerade, Big Sam could not have reduced his bulky form to this figure. The man turned his head a little, and I saw a wizened face, embellished with a mustache of coarse white hair, and scant chin-whiskers that might have belonged to an anemic billy-goat.
Miss Kendrick's face was pale, but its firm expression was an index to her resolve to save Moon Ying from this creature at any cost.
"No," she repeated sharply, "we don't want a Chinese girl--or boy either. We never hire them. You go now." And with a gesture to the man-servant who stood beside her, she turned and was gone without a glance in my direction.
The man-servant, in eager obedience to Miss Kendrick's hint, took the Chinaman by the shoulders, and amid protesting exclamations of "Wha' fo'? Wha' fo'?" ran him out of the hall, and started him down the steps, his speeding word to the departing guest taking the form of: "Get out of here, John, and if you come back I'll kick you out."
Then suddenly catching sight of me, he recovered his breath and his dignity with a sudden effort.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Hampden," he gasped. "I didn't know you was here. Mr. Kendrick is just done dinner. He's gone to his smoking-room. He said if you came I was to show you right in." And with a glance to see that the Chinaman had reached the sidewalk, he shut the door and led the way to the master of the house.
I followed him mechanically, but my thoughts were far from the errand of Peter Bolton's schemes that had brought me hither. An insistent question ran through my mind in endless variations, but when reduced to words it took this form: "Where have I seen the face of the old Chinaman before?"
CHAPTER XVI
LAYING DOWN THE LAW
Wharton Kendrick sat at his ease in smoking-jacket and slippers, but his brow was wrinkled with thought. The cigar that he held between his teeth gave evidence of his discomposure of mind, for it was unlighted, and one end of it had been reduced to the semblance of a cud. I had just delivered to him a conscientious account of my interview with Peter Bolton, and now observed the perturbant reflections that it had stirred.
"Was that all you could get out of the old rascal?" he said after an interval of silence.
"Why, yes," I replied. "I thought it was a pretty good afternoon's work; and indeed I am surprised that he told me so much."
"Oh, thunder, Hampden, you're as easily taken in as the rest of 'em. Didn't I tell you that Peter Bolton is never in the place you're looking for him?"
"Why," I argued, somewhat piqued at this reception of my budget of information, "I thought he told a good deal about his plans--in fact, showed himself a garrulous old foozle instead of the shrewd fox you'd told me about."
"My dear boy," said Wharton Kendrick with a pitying smile, "I'm grateful for your zeal, but the only thing he exposed was his desire to get you to betray me, and I might have guessed that without his telling it."
"But that half-million of notes--"
"Doesn't it strike you, Hampden, that, as a business man, I might be expected to know something about the notes outstanding against me? You're right about one thing: I didn't know they had fallen into Bolton's hands, and I'll have a score to settle with the men who sold 'em to him. But I've got every piece of my paper recorded up here," and he tapped his forehead, "and I'll be prepared to take care of it as it falls due."
"Well," I said ruefully, "I'm just one more victim of misplaced confidence in Peter Bolton."
"Oh, you needn't feel ashamed of that, my boy," said Kendrick kindly. "Your time wasn't wasted. It's worth while to know that those notes are in the hands of an enemy. But that's a mere detail. Now if he had told you how he expects to keep me from meeting them when due--"
Wharton Kendrick left his sentence suspended in the air, while he chewed his cigar for a minute or two.
"After all, Hampden," he continued, "I suspect he has pushed those notes forward to draw away attention from his real point of attack. He's figured on the possibility that you would bring me every word, and has found something to gain out of it, whether your final decision is to stand by me or to take up his offer. Now, about that offer? Are you prepared to accept his twenty-nine thousand for that trifling service he wants?"
"If I get it, I'll go halves with you when you're broke," I replied with an attempt at lightness that was far from a success. "But to tell you the truth, I don't like to discuss the thing, even in joke. It makes my gorge rise to hear a hint that I could take money for betraying you."
"That's Dick Hampden's son," he returned, his face softening into a smile. "I could hear your father speaking then. But if you think I am worrying about your loyalty, just set your mind at rest."
I thanked him for his certificate of confidence, and he continued:
"You don't have to tell me that Bolton isn't the most agreeable company, but I'll be much obliged if you'll cultivate his acquaintance a little further."
"Do you mean that you want me to pretend to accept his offer? I couldn't do that. I couldn't take his money."
"Do you think you would get it?"
"He offered a thousand dollars a week. I'd get that as long as the job lasted."
"Well, fix it up to suit yourself. But if you can find some way to keep him talking, you may get the one word that will join the different ends of his scheme together. Here we have his dealings with Big Sam and the Council of Nine, and his battery of notes ready to fire at me. A little more, and we may see his whole plan. Once I get that, I'll fix a scheme to scoop his pile out from under him so quick that he'll think an earthquake has struck him." And with this hint he excused me for the night.
As I went out into the big hall, I looked regretfully at the library door, with a mental vision of the pleasure of spending an evening in converse with Miss Kendrick setting my pulses to beating. But with Spartan resolve, I crushed down my emotions with the notion that it was my duty to attend the Nob Hill meeting of the agitators.
"Oh, you aren't going without so much as saying 'How is Moon Ying?' are you?" said a piquant voice; and at the words, I turned to see Miss Kendrick coming down the stairs. Her light dress and graceful motions suggested the vision of a fairy floating down from some celestial region with the benevolent purpose of cheering the life of mortals--a purpose that met my instant and hearty approval. At the sound of her voice, the reasons that had drawn me toward the Nob Hill meeting were whisked away like so many scraps of paper before the summer breeze, and I stammered out some clumsy expression of my pleasure in remaining.
"Well," said Miss Kendrick, "I've heard that appearances are deceptive, and now I'm sure of it. You were a very good imitation of a man planning an escape." And she led the way into the library.
"There was something in the appearance," I said. "I was wishing to escape from the duty of going down town."
"Oh, if it's a matter of duty, I shouldn't think of interfering."
"I can't see now why I thought it so," I returned, "but I was suspecting there might be the chance of a fight."
"Well, if there's to be any fighting," said Miss Kendrick in some alarm, "I'll give you a bit of advice, and that is to keep out of it."
"There's to be a meeting of the anti-Chinese clubs to-night up by the Stanford-Hopkins houses, and it may start a riot," I explained. "I didn't know but I ought to go to it."
"The curiosity of these men!" she sighed. "And they talk of the inquisitiveness of women. Why, you might have fifty riots, and you'd never see me going near one of them--not if I heard of it beforehand."
"I hope not. But it isn't altogether curiosity that would lead me to attend."
"You don't mean that you have any crazy idea of trying to stop the fighting if it begins?"
"Well, no."
"Then you just leave the business of the police to the police," she said. "I'm beginning to believe that you need a guardian."
"I believe so, too," I replied, with the thought that I saw a very desirable person for the place. I was tempted to say as much, but Miss Kendrick responded hastily:
"I wouldn't envy him his position." Then she added: "I'm not sorry I interrupted you in your foolishness, but I shouldn't have done so if I hadn't wanted to take counsel with you."
I wished she had chosen a more complimentary way of putting it, but professed myself all readiness to listen.
"There was a Chinaman here a little while ago," she began, and then she described in detail her interview with the little old man in the hall.
As she told her tale my thoughts were busy with the insistent question--where had I seen the Chinaman before?
"Now, what does that mean?" she demanded, when her tale was done.
As she asked the question the problem was solved. A sudden picture flashed into my mind of the old Chinaman who had posed as the girl's father after she had been stolen.
"It means nothing, I think--some peddler with silk handkerchiefs to sell, perhaps," I replied, with an effort to put a careless indifference into my voice.
"You think nothing of the kind," said Miss Kendrick. "I don't see why you treat me like a child. I'm not a child, and I am wishing that you would discover it." She spoke with a little of wistfulness in her voice and manner. "Tell me honestly what you think about the visit of the Chinaman?" she said pleadingly.
I reflected a minute on her request, and she broke forth in rapid words:
"Do you think, if I am afraid, that you can make me confident by telling me that the dark won't bite me? Perhaps I am afraid--sometimes I do feel horribly scared--but don't you think I counted all the dangers before I made you bring poor little Moon Ying? There's one thing I'm more afraid of than all the rest of things put together, and that is the unknown thing. Let me know of a danger, and I'll be scared, and face it. But when I know it's there, and don't know what it is--that's the time I want to run. Now I saw in your face that you knew, or thought you knew, and were afraid. Please tell me what it is that you think."
She looked into my eyes with such a mixture of pleading and command that my reluctance to confide my fears to her melted away.
"The man," I replied, "was beyond doubt the old pirate who had Moon Ying in charge for the Hop Sing Tong."
"And you think he was on a reconnoitering expedition for his wicked society?"
"I have no doubt of it."
She considered the matter with a grave face and downcast eyes, and I regretted that I had confided my fears to her so bluntly. Then she asked:
"Do you think the highbinders will come here?"
"No, I don't. I do not believe there is courage enough in all the tongs in Chinatown to attack this house. They have a pretty clear idea of the sort of vengeance that would be taken on them, if they tried such a thing. The burning of Los Angeles' Chinatown was a lesson that they will remember a long time."
"Do you think it possible that your wicked tongsters might hire some white men to do what they don't dare do themselves?"
Miss Kendrick spoke in such tone that I demanded sharply:
"What put that idea into your head?"
"I suppose I ought to have told you at first, but the fact is that it's just this minute I've put two and two together and made five out of them. Now this is the way of it: A little while before the old Chinaman was here, a white man came to the back door and asked for something to eat. The cook set out some victuals for him, but he didn't seem to have the appetite of a starving man. What he did have was a consuming curiosity about the family. After a good many questions, he asked if there were any Chinese about the place. The cook said 'No,' and then he asked if there wasn't a Chinese girl here. I can't get out of the cook just what she did tell him, but I have no doubt he had the whole story out of her. I'm sure the fellow knows this minute just what room the girl is in, and who waits on her, and what she has for dinner, and how many people are about the place, and whatever else he wanted to find out."
I balanced my suspicions between the possibility that the fellow was a spy for the tongs, and the chance that he was an agent of the anti-coolie clubs, and then asked for a description of him.
"Well," said Miss Kendrick, "he's a most remarkable-looking creature, and I'm sure you ought to have no difficulty in finding him. I asked three of the servants who saw him, and took down their descriptions, and all you have to do is to look for a tall, short, middle-sized young man, with yellowish, brown, black hair, and black and blue (or possibly green) eyes, with and without a mustache, wearing a slouch derby hat, and dressed in dark, light-colored clothes--and then you'll have the man."
"I'm sure the police ought to be able to lay their hands on him at once," I said. "But it's no matter. I can hardly imagine the tongs hiring a gang of burglars to steal the girl. However, I'll have men enough around here to give them other things to think about if they come near the house."
"Well, then, I shall sleep easier," said Miss Kendrick with a sigh of relief. "It's a comfort to one's mind to know that there's some one looking after your safety. It's not strong-minded, but it's much more satisfying than having the responsibility one's self." She paid this tribute to the protecting hand of man with an infinitely charming condescension, and then at a sound from without changed her tone to earnest admonition: "And now I hear Mercy coming, and you're not to say a word of worriments."
"Mum's the word," I replied, pleased to enter into the bonds of conspiracy; and a moment later Miss Fillmore entered, breathless, followed by Mr. Baldwin clothed in supercilious indignation.
"Why, what's the matter?" cried Miss Kendrick, starting up impulsively, and embracing Miss Fillmore.
"Oh, my dear," returned her friend in a disturbed voice, "it's nothing much, I think--" She hesitated in evident unwillingness to alarm her hostess, but Mr. Baldwin's indignation was repressed by no such consideration.
"It's another demonstration by Mr. Hampden's friends," he said with something of heat in his cold cynical voice. "That blatherskite Kearney has led a crowd of hoodlums up Nob Hill, and it looks as though there would be wild times before the night is over. We passed a gang of the riffraff a few minutes ago, and they were headed up California Street, yelling like wild Indians about burning down the Stanford and Hopkins places. It's a fine pass that this toleration of the worst elements has brought us to. There's just one way to deal with those fellows, and that's to call out the troops and mow them down. If we were under a city government that had the first notion of protecting life and property, it would have had the whole gang in jail without waiting for murder and arson."
With this threat in the air, the Nob Hill meeting became a matter of immediate interest. If a riot should start at that point, it might be followed by an attack on the Van Ness Avenue district, and it evidently behooved me to judge for myself the temper and designs of the crowd.
"If my friends are engaged in any such desperate business, I'm afraid it's my duty to keep them from getting any further into mischief," I said; "so I'll bid you a good evening."
"You don't mean you are going out into that mob, do you?" cried Miss Kendrick.
"That is my present purpose," I replied with some exultation at the anxiety betrayed in her tone and look.
"Well, I'm sure you're old enough to know better, but I see you are an obstinate man-creature, and it's no use to say anything to you. But when you get there, I hope you'll remember that you're not a regiment of soldiers, and leave the business of the police to the police."
"Send word if you're arrested," said Mr. Baldwin scornfully, "and I'll see what can be done about bail."
I bowed my thanks, and went out into the hall where I found Miss Fillmore awaiting me.
"Do you think Mr. Parks is in that mob?" she asked, with a charming air of embarrassment.
"I don't doubt it," I replied.
"He is so impulsive," she said. "I saw him this afternoon, and he was very much excited over something that happened to Mr. Merwin. I am very much afraid he will let his feelings run away with him to-night."
There was a depth of anxiety in her eyes that Parks ought to have been proud to inspire, and even with the call of conflict urging me to be gone, I spoke a few words of comfort, and reflected on the mysteries of attraction that should draw together the gentle Mercy and the impassioned leader of revolt against society.
"If you find him to-night, try to restrain him," she pleaded. "It is his good heart--his sympathy with the suffering--that brings him into these troubles."
"I shall do all I can," I promised.
Outside the house, I stopped for a few minutes to see that my watchmen were on duty, and to learn if they had observed any signs of trouble.
"No," said Andrews, the head watchman, "there's been nothing worse than a gang of hoodlums going up toward Nob Hill, and yelling like Comanches. But one of 'em makes me a bit suspicious, for as he passes, he says, 'That's the house.' I says to myself that there's a chance he means this one, so I've cautioned the boys to be wide awake."
"How many are on duty to-night?"
"Four besides myself--Reardon and Selfridge, Hunt and Carr."
"Well, get two more to stand watch with you to-morrow night, and till further orders." And with Andrews' assurance that he knew two trustworthy men for the place, I ran down the steps and hastened up the street toward Nob Hill.
As I reached the plateau, the meeting appeared to have resolved itself into small groups, that now scattered, now coalesced, and then scattered again, with shouts and cries of men. There were roars of anger followed by jeers, and shouted orders, and the elements of disorder circled hither and thither in aimless dispersion. Hoodlums elbowed me from the sidewalk. A policeman caught me by the arm and whirled me around with a curt order to "Git out of this now," and I recognized that the forces of law and order had replied to the challenge of the agitators.
I pressed my way forward, by avoiding the scattered police, and at last reached the corner of Mason and California Streets by the Hopkins mansion. There was still a mob of a thousand or more, struggling about a shouting group, thinning from moment to moment, under the efforts of the police.
I caught a glimpse of Parks, with mouth open and fist raised. Then he disappeared; a company of police appeared in the speaker's place, and the mob melted away with marvelous rapidity. The police formed in company front, swept along the block, and then with a right-about-face returned, and broke up into twos and threes in chase of groups of disorder.
As the upper block was nearly cleared, I caught sight of a policeman with whom I had a nodding acquaintance.
"You've got a handful of trouble to-night," I said, as he paused for breath.
"Throuble by the armful," he said indignantly. "That blatherskite Kearney ought to be in the tanks, with all that gang of fish-horn shouters that follows him. He's making us more throuble than all the haythin divils between Goat Island and Washerwoman's Bay, and that's not sayin' a little."
"I didn't get here in time to hear what he said."
The policeman gave an indignant snort, and paused to order a trio of young men to "git home and out of here now."
"Well," he said, turning to me again, "you needn't lose slape for what you've missed. He told that crowd of howling hoodlums that these houses here was built with the loot squeezed out of their pockets, whin hiven knows that they wouldn't do enough wurruk in tin thousand years to build wan side of that fince. Thin he says to 'em, 'What's the matter wid yez is thot the railroad hires the haythins instead of puttin' youse on the job'--as if those hoods would lave town and lift pick and shovel on the grade to save their sowls from the Ould Wan himself. An' at last he says, 'I give the leprous corporation jist thirty days to fire their haythin shovelers, an' if they don't, I'll lade yez up here to hang Stanford and Crocker out of their own windows, an' burn their houses on top of thim.' Thin some drunken hood yells, 'Hang 'em now!' An' with that we clubs 'em good and hard. Now we've got 'em on the run, an' we've got ordhers to keep 'em on the run till they've had enough."
"Was Kearney arrested?" I asked.
"I think not, sor, but some of the gang with him was."
"Is there any danger of an attack on the houses on Van Ness Avenue?"
"It don't look so, sor. The hoodlums don't seem to be looking above wash-houses now, an' most of thim are ready to hunt their holes. Well, good night to ye, sor. I must head off this gang here." And he ran up Mason Street flourishing his club in chase of a dozen venturesome boys.