“If the boy not come home I lose my wife sure,” continued Hom Hing with bitter sadness. “It’s not right,” cried the young man indignantly. Then he made his proposition. The Chinese father’s eyes brightened exceedingly. “Will I like you to go to Washington and make them give you the paper to restore my son?” cried he. “How can you ask when you know my heart’s desire?” “Then,” said the young fellow, “I will start next week. I am anxious to see this thing through if only for the sake of your wife’s peace of mind.” “I will call her. To hear what you think to do will make her glad,” said Hom Hing. He called a message to Lae Choo upstairs through a tube in the wall. In a few moments she appeared, listless, wan, and hollow-eyed; but when her husband told her the young lawyer’s suggestion she became as one electrified; her form straightened, her eyes glistened; the color flushed to her cheeks. “Oh,” she cried, turning to James Clancy, “You are a hundred man good!” The young man felt somewhat embarrassed; his eyes shifted a little under the intense gaze of the Chinese mother. “Well, we must get your boy for you,” he responded. “Of course”—turning to Hom Hing—“it will cost a little money. You can’t get fellows to hurry the Government for you without gold in your pocket.” Hom Hing stared blankly for a moment. Then: “How much do you want, Mr. Clancy?” he asked quietly. “Well, I will need at least five hundred to start with.” Hom Hing cleared his throat. “I think I told to you the time I last paid you for writing letters for me and seeing the Custom boss here that nearly all I had was gone!” “Oh, well then we won’t talk about it, old fellow. It won’t harm the boy to stay where he is, and your wife may get over it all right.” “What that you say?” quavered Lae Choo. James Clancy looked out of the window. “He says,” explained Hom Hing in English, “that to get our boy we have to have much money.” “Money! Oh, yes.” Lae Choo nodded her head. “I have not got the money to give him.” For a moment Lae Choo gazed wonderingly from one face to the other; then, comprehension dawning upon her, with swift anger, pointing to the lawyer, she cried: “You not one hundred man good; you just common white man.” “Yes, ma’am,” returned James Clancy, bowing and smiling ironically. Hom Hing pushed his wife behind him and addressed the lawyer again: “I might try,” said he, “to raise something; but five hundred—it is not possible.” “What about four?” “I tell you I have next to nothing left and my friends are not rich.” “Very well!” The lawyer moved leisurely toward the door, pausing on its threshold to light a cigarette. “Stop, white man; white man, stop!” Lae Choo, panting and terrified, had started forward and now stood beside him, clutching his sleeve excitedly. “You say you can go to get paper to bring my Little One to me if Hom Hing give you five hundred dollars?”