Could he make these foreigners believe in this tale of China, of forty years ago? Could he tell them that he and the other had been in love with the same girl, that she had preferred the coolie to the aristocrat, and that the latter had sworn revenge? Could he tell them that those had been the days directly after China’s war of eighteen hundred and sixty against France and England, when the imperial court had been compelled to leave Pekin and flee to Jehol, when the Summer Palace had been taken and sacked by the barbarians, when a shameful treaty had been forced on the Middle Kingdom, and when the Huang T’ai Hou, the Empress, the Old Buddha, had issued an edict that, until a “more propitious time” the lives of foreigners should be sacred in the land of Han? Could he tell them how he had found out that the Manchu, in a fit of rage, had murdered, and quietly buried, a British missionary; how thus, by threatening exposure to the Pekin authorities, he had held the whip-hand; how, discretion being the better part of valor, he and the Moon-beam had emigrated to America; and how now, to-day, forty years later, he had met the Manchu here, in New York--still the same Manchu--hawkish, steely, ruthless--? Ng Ch’u shook his head. He could imagine what Bill Devoy, detective of Second Branch and Pell Street specialist, would say, “Cut it out! Ye’ve been hittin’ the old pipe too hard. What? Manchu? Dowager Empress? Moon-beam? Missionary? Revenge? Say--ye’ve blown in too many dimes on them--now--seven-reelers! Keep away from the movies, Chinkie--see?” * * * * * Ng Ch’u shivered. He jumped sidewise rapidly as he heard a rustling noise. Then he smiled apologetically--it had just been a dim stir of torn bits of paper whirled about by a vagabond wind--and turned, at a sudden right angle, toward Nag Hong Fah’s Great Chop Suey Restaurant where it slashed the purple, trailing night with a square of yellow light. A minute later, his heart beating like a trip-hammer, he was up the stairs. Two minutes later, outwardly composed, he bowed, his hands clasped over his chest, to the company of merchants who were gathered in the Honorable Pavilion of Tranquil Longevity, some quietly smoking or sipping tea, others gossiping, still others playing at _hsiang ch’i_ chess and _ta ma_. The soft, gliding hum of voices, the sizzling of the opium lamps, the sucking of boiling-hot tea drunk by compressed lips, the clicks of the copper and ivory counters--it was all tremendously peaceful and reassuring; and Ng Ch’u sighed contentedly as he dropped into a chair by the side of Ching Shan, his silent partner, and began talking to him in an undertone about a shipment of Sheba pottery which could be picked up at a bargain in San Francisco. Presently, business over, he asked a question. “Brother very old and very wise,” he said, “what are the protections of the day and the night against an evil man?”