Something in the pit of my stomach seemed to collapse. I tried to say something to the old boss, but the words wouldn’t come; they just rattled around in my throat. The old man bored into me with his eyes like a blacksnake “charming” a bird. Suddenly he uttered a short, sharp exclamation that sounded like “Chut.” I snatched my eyes away from his and closed them, prepared for the fatal blow that my guilty mind told me was about to fall on my head from behind. The blow did not fall, but I was almost dead anyway and swayed on my box till the China boys had to support me. I felt a fumbling at my ankles and opened my eyes to find the knotty-legged boy kneeling at my feet, untying his knots. When the rope was taken off me, I turned my head and saw the boy standing behind me, holding his cleaver at “ready,” prepared to strike me down only if I started anything rough. One of them handed me my hat. I put it on, and stood up slowly and with an effort. The old man waved his arm toward the back room. “You go ou’,” he ordered sternly. “My letter?” I asked meekly and respectfully. “No more letter,” he said, crumpling it in his hand. The Chinese boys stood aside as I started into the bunk room to go out the back door. I was shamed, humiliated, covered with confusion. Turning back, I took off my hat, and facing the old man held up my right hand. “If I ever rob another Chink I hope to rot in the gutter.” I was so intent on expressing my gratitude that I forgot my Chinese lingo. He understood no word of it, I’m sure, but pointed again to the back. “You go ou’.” I went out, humble and crestfallen. In the alley I threw the bottle of chloroform against a building, and its crash somewhat relieved my feelings. That was my first and last experience with chloroform as an aid to burglary. As an agent for stupefying a sleeping person without waking him, I maintain, in spite of the opinions of fiction writers and romancing thieves, “it can’t be done.” Making my way to the cottage of my Salt Lake friends who had promoted me, I reported my disastrous and humiliating failure. Had they been inclined to entertain any doubts about my story, my appearance would have set them at rest. I was scratched, clawed, bruised, and had a big lump on my head. They were very sympathetic. I was invited to “stick around a few days” till they could look up something else for me. I excused myself as tactfully as possible, resolving to locate my own work from there on. I went to my room and to bed, and stayed there several days because of the terrible mauling the Chinamen had given me. Yet, with all this, I couldn’t but respect them for letting me go free, heaping coals of fire on my guilty head. I remembered Smiler and our resolve never to pester another Mormon when we had been captured in the Temple yard and released. I vowed never to molest another Chinaman, and never since have I imposed upon one except on one occasion, and that was under great necessity.