His baskets, each screened with languid gum-leaves, held the week's output of his garden, representing in money value at least two pounds. It wag not likely to yield half as much, for, being a new-chum, he was fair game, and it was considered smart to impose on his good-nature. He also paid through an agent a weekly levy to Tsing Hi, which he understood purchased the tolerance, if not goodwill, under all and every circumstance of the dreaded police and the populace generally. It was a tax; but Hu Dra was patient under such exactions, as all his ancestors had been. They were unavoidable, inevitable, a part of the mystery of life, and consequently to be endured, if not with complacency, at least without murmur. His profits for the week might total one pound, a princely sum considering the scene and circumstances of his birth and upbringing in far Li-Chiang, where his father had reared a large family in a shed over a sewer, and had never possessed property or estate worth more than five shillings. Soon, if this money-making business continued to thrive, he would return thither. He might--for had he not been reared to the art of living in such places?--resume the sewer habit; but with three hundred pounds in good English gold what sewer in Li-Chiang could not be transformed into Paradise? One basket contained a huge fruit which he understood his white customers to term “plonkn”; with it was a broad-bladed knife, with which he would slice off slabs according to demand. That one item might bring him in more money than his revered father's fortune. Wrapped in day-dreams, he hummed again his chant, dwelling on the refrain with lyrical gladness-- “Li she tzu.” Perhaps it was the name of the maiden he proposed to ask to share his fortune and his portion of the sewer, and so he repeated-- ---“Li she t----!” A big, strong, authoritative hand had gripped him by the shoulder. He screamed. The baskets sat down plump. “Come away wid ye! I've cotched yer! I'll tache ye to escape from lawful custody!” “No savee! No savee!” screamed Hu Dra. “I'll tache ye, thin V' shouted Tim, and Hu Dra reeled under the severity of the first lesson--a back-hander across the face. “Wha' for?” asked Hu Dra, still staggering. “Come on! You know wha' for! I'll stan' none o' yer wha' for's!” Hu Dra clung to the basket-stick threateningly. “Fwhat! Resisting the pollis in the execution of dooty. Me bhoy, ye're a new-chum or yer niver wad be so bould. It is sarious bizinis.” The stick flew out of Hu Dra's hands, and, as if by magic, he found his hands clamped in iron bands, which pinched his wrists excruciatingly. He yelled with vexation, fear, and pain. “Ye can holler as much as ye have the moind ter. Be jabers, the next haythen Chinkee that gits out of the darbies I clap on'm 'll be a slippery, slathery eel, and meself after fergittin' to maake a knot in his taale! Come quiet, me good haythen, and I'll dale aisy wid yer.”