His best friends regarded him as one better let alone and made swift gestures of repulsion when he passed 'em. Quite a crowd followed at a safe distance and gathered outside when he went into Doctor Hong Foy's office. It was a kind of store on the ground floor, so Lew Wee says, with shelves full of rich old Chinee medicines that had a certain powerful presence of their own. But even in here Doctor Hong Foy should of known beyond a doubt what his friend had brought him. It seemed the doctor had to make sure. He wasn't of the same believing nature as the street-car people, and the German and others. He wanted to be shown. So they undone the sack and opened it down to where Doctor Hong Foy could make sure. But their work was faulty and the wild animal didn't like handling after its day of mistreatment. It had been made morbid, I guess. Anyway, it displayed an extremely nervous tendency, and many impetuous movements, and bit Doctor Hong Foy in the thumb. Then the first owner tried to grab him and the pet wriggled away on to a tray of dried eel gizzards, or something, and off that to the open door. The little thing run into the front of the large crowd that had waited outside and had a wonderful effect on it. Them in the centre tried to melt away, but couldn't on account of them on the outside; so there was fights and accidents, and different ones tromped on, and screams of fear. And this brought a lot bigger crowd that pressed in and made the centre ones more anguished. I don't know. That poor animal had been imposed on all day and must of been overwrought. It was sore vexed by now and didn't care who knew it. Lots of 'em did. Of course Lew Wee dashed out after his property, hugging the sack to his chest; and, of course, he created just as much disturbance as his little pet had. Policemen was mingling with the violence by this time and adding much to its spirit. One public-spirited citizen grabbed Lew Wee in spite of its being distasteful; but he kicked the poor man on the kneecap and made a way through the crowd without too much trouble. He wasn't having any vogue whatever in that neighbourhood. He run down a little side street, up an alley, and into a cellar he knew about, this cellar being the way out of the Young China Progressive Association when they was raided up the front stairs on account of gambling at poker. He could hear the roar of the mob clear from there. It took about an hour for this to die down. People would come to see what all the excitement was about, and find out almost at once; then they'd try to get away, and run against others coming to find out, thus producing a very earnest riot. There was mounted policemen and patrol wagons and many arrests, and an armed posse hunting for the escaped pet and shooting up alleys at every little thing that moved. They never did find the pet--so one of Lew Wee's cousins wrote him; which made him sorry on account of Doctor Hong Foy and the twenty-five or mebbe thirty dollars.