"I had received information that something of the kind had happened, but your silence gave me chance to hope that my informant was mistaken." "No doubt I ought to have reported to you at once. I can only offer apologies for my neglect." Big Sam gravely bowed in pardon of my remissness. "It is a very awkward affair," he said. "And it will prove much more awkward if she dies." "She is now out of danger." "I trust so. Her death would send the tongs at each other’s throats." "And at yours?" "I should find it necessary to be absent from the city for some months," he said quietly. "You might look on it in the light of a vacation," I suggested. "Unfortunately it is of the last importance that I should be here through the coming months." "I presume that I am not expected to understand why." "If you have kept your eyes open, you may have some idea of the reason." He spoke with a tinge of sarcasm in his tone. "Oh, a man can not always be sure of his eyes," I replied, with a reflection of his manner. "It is true, I know that violence is threatened against your people, and that Chinatown is likely to be burned down before the troubles are over. I know that, for reasons that seem good to himself, Peter Bolton is furnishing money to aid in the campaign of disorder. But what I do not know is the reason why Big Sam is engaged in secret dealings with Peter Bolton. On its face it looks to me like the case of a man joining in a plot to burn his own home." Big Sam drew down the veils of inscrutability over his eyes as he looked steadily at me, and asked: "What result do you expect from the agitation?" "For the first thing, destruction of property and the killing of some of your countrymen." "Oh," said Big Sam carelessly, "as for the property, it belongs mostly to your countrymen. We prefer to keep our belongings in movable form. And as for my countrymen, if any of them get killed, there are plenty more where they came from." A shiver ran down my back at this cold-blooded way of looking at the matter, and with some element of repulsion in my thought, I replied sharply: "But those countrymen may not be able to reach here. The final result of the troubles, in my judgment, will be the shutting of our gates to the Chinese immigrant." "Even that might not be altogether a misfortune," said Big Sam calmly. "Not to us, I believe," I said. "And not to us," said Big Sam. "I’m glad you take so kindly to the idea," I said. "Oh, it’s very simple," he explained, "a mere calculation of dollars and cents. Shut off the supply, you increase the value of those now here. If no more of my countrymen come, you will find none working for ten and fifteen dollars a month. In a few years the ten-dollar man will be getting twenty; the fifteen-dollar man will be getting thirty; the men who are working in the fields and on the railroads for seventy-five cents and a dollar a day will be getting a dollar and a half and two dollars."