"That one’s Sadie," said Manning, pointing to the third one, who remained silent the while. I turned to her. She was smoking a cigar, and from time to time spat through her teeth man-fashion. She was a dreadful-looking beast of a woman, wrinkled like a shriveled apple, her teeth quite black from nicotine, her hands bony and prehensile, like a hawk’s claws—but a white woman beyond all doubt. At first Sadie refused to drink, but the smell of Manning’s can of gin removed her objections, and in half an hour she was hopelessly loquacious. What effect the alcohol had upon the paralysed organs of her speech I cannot say. Sober, she was tongue-tied—drunk, she could emit a series of faint bird-like twitterings that sounded like a voice heard from the bottom of a well. "Sadie," said Manning, blowing smoke out of his ears, "what makes you live with Chinamen? You’re a white girl. You got people somewhere. Why don’t you get back to them?" Sadie shook her head. "Like um China boy better," she said, in a voice so faint we had to stoop to listen. "Ah Yee’s pretty good to us—plenty to eat, plenty to smoke, and as much yen shee as we can stand. Oh, I don’t complain." "You know you can get out of this whenever you want. Why don’t you make a run for it some day when you’re out? Cut for the Mission House on Sacramento street—they’ll be good to you there." "Oh!" said Sadie, listlessly, rolling a pill between her stained palms, "I been here so long I guess I’m kind of used to it. I’ve about got out of white people’s ways by now. They wouldn’t let me have my yen shee and my cigar, and that’s about all I want nowadays. You can’t eat yen shee long and care for much else, you know. Pass that gin along, will you? I’m going to faint in a minute." "Wait a minute," said I, my hand on Manning’s arm. "How long have you been living with Chinamen, Sadie?" "Oh, I don’t know. All my life, I guess. I can’t remember back very far—only spots here and there. Where’s that gin you promised me?" "Only in spots?" said I; "here a little and there a little—is that it? Can you remember how you came to take up with this kind of life?" "Sometimes I can and sometimes I can’t," answered Sadie. Suddenly her head rolled upon her shoulder, her eyes closing. Manning shook her roughly: "Let be! let be!" she exclaimed, rousing up; "I’m dead sleepy. Can’t you see?" "Wake up, and keep awake, if you can," said Manning; "this gentleman wants to ask you something." "Ah Yee bought her from a sailor on a junk in the Pei Ho river," put in one of the other women. "How about that, Sadie?" I asked. "Were you ever on a junk in a China river? Hey? Try and think?" "I don’t know," she said. "Sometimes I think I was. There’s lots of things I can’t explain, but it’s because I can’t remember far enough back." "Did you ever hear of a girl named Ten Eyck—Harriett Ten Eyck—who was stolen by Chinamen here in San Francisco a long time ago?"