"It was promised that I should be obeyed. I have been obeyed for many months. Yet just at this moment, when it is of the utmost importance that we should be a peaceful, united body, these dogs of the gutter start a war between the tongs." "You have shown your power to end it," I said. "You are too flattering, I fear," said the King of Chinatown. "Fire in flax, you say. It is so much easier to keep fire out of flax than to stamp it out after it starts. It is in my power to punish these men, but I fear that it is beyond my power to smother their enmity. In the code of the tongs blood or blood-money must pay for this." He mused for a little and seemed to be speaking to himself as much as to me. "That this should happen at such a time, when everything depends on our self-control! It is shameful--shameful--a reproach to our race." "At such a time? I do not understand you," I ventured. The hint in his words was too plain to miss. He looked at me sharply. "You do not know what is going on in your own city, Mr. Hampden," he said politely. "I confess to a lack of information on the point you mention." "It will be brought to your attention later," said Big Sam dryly. "But I am detaining you with matters of no interest. You wished a translation of these papers?" His face was bland and impassive, yet I had the impression that he felt he had said too much. "It has been deeply interesting," I said. "But I am imposing on your good nature." It was of no use to seek to learn from Big Sam anything that he thought fit to conceal, and I placed the slips before him. He read them off gravely. One was a polite note of invitation to dinner. The other a memorandum of goods bought, or to be bought. I thanked him and raged inwardly that I should have been outwitted. Big Sam smiled blandly. "It is nothing in the way of treason, whichever paper you may choose." "Quite innocent," I said, looking in his half veiled eyes. I read that he was under no delusion that he had deceived me. I rose to go. "One moment, Mr. Hampden," he said. "You have asked a trifling favor of me. May I ask a much greater one of you?" "Certainly." "This girl--I am perplexed to know what to do with her." "Is there a more proper custodian than her father?" "Father?" "The old man--you know." Big Sam laughed--a most unpleasant laugh, too. "Quite as near a relation as yourself, Mr. Hampden. He is merely the custodian for his tong." "Then his pitiful tale to the police--" "Oh, we do not want for the inventive faculty." "Then what better guardian could you suggest than yourself," I said, "or what better place than in your own home--or one of your homes?" Big Sam was reported to have one white wife and two Chinese wives, and it seemed to me that he might provide for her safety with one of the three, in case he did not wish to add to his matrimonial blessings.