"Why, no; I hardly think so. Big Sam assured me that there was not." Then, after a moment’s hesitation, I added: "While I don’t doubt Big Sam’s good faith in the matter, I have taken the precaution to have the place well guarded. There are four watchmen outside at the present moment--unless I underestimate the attractions of the corner grocery; and the highbinder who tries to get in will have the warmest five minutes of his life." "How kind of you to attend to that!" said Miss Fillmore. "But I wasn’t thinking of the highbinders. What set me to asking you was a meeting I had with Mr. Parks to-day." "Parks!" I exclaimed in surprise. "You know him?" "Oh, yes, indeed. We were children together, and I count him as a good friend." A blush that tinted her cheeks suggested that the friendship was a little nearer than she would have me believe. "Then I wish you would get him to cut his hair! I think it would save him from getting hanged." "How absurd you are!" "Merely an application of the theory of clothes--_Sartor Resartus_, and all that, you know. Dress to a part, and you get the spirit of it." "You are joking," said Miss Fillmore, with the seriousness of one to whom the sense of humor is beyond understanding. "Not at all," I returned. "If Parks came down to the normal supply of hair he might get rid of some abnormal ideas that are going to bring him into trouble." Miss Fillmore looked at me doubtfully a moment, and again expressed her opinion that I was joking. Then she put aside the subject as one beyond her comprehension, and continued: "But never mind. I met him this afternoon when I was out taking the air, and he said that there was going to be trouble in the city, and asked if we kept any Chinese servants." "Yes? And if you did--?" "Well, we don’t, and I told him so, and he said if we did we had better turn them away in a hurry. Then he went on to tell me that there was going to be an uprising of the people, and that the unemployed might make an attack on the Chinese and those who hire them. Now, do you think that the presence of our poor little Moon Ying will bring the mob here?" "Mr. Parks could answer that question much better than I." "I asked him, and he said ’Oh, no’--that his people were not warring on women or the sick; but I feared he was too hopeful." "I do not think there is the slightest danger," I replied. "If Mr. Parks’ friends get to be too obstreperous, the police will make short work of them. But I don’t think they are enterprising enough to get so far away from Tar Flat." I spoke with a confidence that was more assumed than real. "Oh, indeed they are. There was some one here to-day about the matter. Laura, my dear," she said, raising her voice and earning a frown from Mr. Baldwin by breaking into his monopoly; "Laura, my dear, didn’t you say there was some one here to-day inquiring about Chinese?"