this rarefied mountain air there is only a small amount of oxygen to
the cubic inch, and combustion is more difficult to secure than in
the lower latitudes. I have heard that if you get high enough up,
you can’t cook an egg--that is, I mean, water won’t boil--or
something like that,” he continued, thrown into sudden confusion by
the discovery that the professor’s eye was fixed upon him with a
sarcastic gaze.
“Is that supposed to be science?” demanded the professor.
“Well,” said the stock-broker, doggedly, “never mind the reasons.
Experience is probably good enough for Long Tom. He finds that he
gets a better draught for his stove by having it up in mid-air, so
he has it there.”
“The right explanation,” began the professor, “is the simplest. My
idea is that----”
“Excuse me,” interrupted the stock-broker, tapping the table; “are
you in this pot?”
The professor made a deposit, and proceeded:
“Have you noticed that our host is a very tall man? Like most men of
his height, he hates to bend over. If the stove were near the floor,
he would have to stoop down low when he whirled a flap-jack or
speared a rasher of bacon. Now he can stand up and do it with ease.
Your draught theory is no good; the longer the pipe, if it is
straight, the better the fire will burn.”
“Professor,” remarked the colonel, “I regret to have to tell you
that your money is gone. Long Tom told me, on the way up, that his
partner did all the cooking, and he is a man of rather short
stature.” The colonel then paid his compliments to the jack-pot, and
continued: “Now, my idea is that the stove heats the room better
there than on the floor. It is only a cooking-stove, to be sure, but
when the winter is cold it makes this room comfortable. Being up in
the middle of the space, it heats it all equally well, which it
could not do if it were down below.”
The doctor greeted this theory with a loud laugh. “Colonel,” he
said, “you are wild--way off the mark. Hot air rises, of course, and
the only way to disseminate it is to have your stove as low as
possible. According to your idea, it would be a good plan to put the
furnace in the attic of a house instead of in the basement.”
“I think,” said the colonel, “that I could appreciate your argument
better if you would ante.”
“The pot is mine,” said the doctor, as he deposited his coin; “you
will all adopt my idea the moment you hear it, and Long Tom, who
will be here in a minute, will bear me out. This room is very small;
it has but little floor-space, and none of it goes to waste. Now, if
he had put the stove down where we expected to find it, Long Tom
could not have made use of the area underneath, as you see he has
done. On all sides of the supporting posts, you will notice there
are hooks, on which he hangs his pans and skillets. Underneath,
there is a kitchen-closet for pots and cooking-utensils of various
sorts. What could be more convenient? Under your ordinary stove
there is room only for a poker and a few cockroaches.”
The judge, who had been listening to the opinions offered by the
others with the same grim smile that occasionally ornamented his
face when he announced that an objection was overruled, now stepped
forward and dropped a coin on the table. He then rendered his
decision as follows:
“It appears that none of you have noticed the forest of hooks in the
roof just over the stove. They are not in use at present, but they
are there for some purpose. I imagine that during the winter huge
pieces of venison and bear’s-meat dangle over the stove, and are
dried for use later. Now, if the stove were on the floor, it would
be too far from the roof to be of service in this way.”
“Here comes old Tom,” shouted the colonel, who had stepped to the
open door while the judge was speaking.
The old trapper put down the various articles of baggage with which
his arms were loaded and came into the kitchen-cabin where we all
stood. He glanced at the group and then at the stilted stove in our
midst.
“I see you air all admirin’ my stove,” said he, “and I’ll bet you’ve
been a-wonderin’ why it is up so high.”
“Yes, we have,” said the professor; “how did you know it?”
“People most allus generally jest as soon as they come into the
place begin to ask me about it--that’s how I knowed.”
“Well, why is it up so high?” demanded the stock-broker impatiently,
with a side glance at the well-developed jack-pot on the table.
“The reason’s simple enough,” said Long Tom, with a grin that showed
his bicuspids; “you see we had to pack all this stuff up here from
down below on _burros_. Originally there was four j’ints of that
stove-pipe, but the cinch wasn’t drawed tight enough on the _burro_
that was carryin’’em, and two of’em slipped out and rolled down the
mountain. When we got here and found that there wasn’t but two
pieces left, I reckoned that I would have to kinder h’ist the stove
to make it fit the pipe--so I jest in an’ h’isted her. And thar she
is yet. Say, what’s all this here money on the table for?”
There was a deep silence which lasted so long that Tom ventured to
repeat his question about the money.
“It is a jack-pot,” said the doctor, sadly, “and as near as I can
make out, it belongs to you.”
THE SEATS OF JUDGMENT
By C. W. Doyle
I.
That Two Eyes are Better than One in the Dark.
“Thou hast the writings of Le Toy, Wau Shun?” asked Sam Lee of his
brother-highbinder, as the latter issued from the receiving hospital
of San Francisco.
“Verily, or thou hadst heard my dogs bark within,” replied Wau Shun.
“And Lee Toy?”
“Lee Toy died babbling of wings, and of the white babe whose life he
saved from fire this day at the price of his own, and whose father
stood beside him weeping like a woman.”
“Was ever the like seen before!” exclaimed Sam Lee. “That Lee Toy,
the bravest of the brave, the keenest hatchet of our ‘tong,’ should
fail his brethren, and break his oaths, and worship the white babe
whose abduction he had undertaken--and that the babe’s father should
weep for one of our people!”
“Ay, and, what is of more importance, that Lee Toy should have given
me the writings that would have hanged us, who compassed his
passing! Eh, Sam Lee?”
“Yea, Wau Shun; and compassed also the hanging of Quong Lung--nay,
turn not so suddenly in a narrow lane, my brother, for I have but
one eye, as thou knowest, and that can not abide swift movement in
the dark on the part of a man whose life is forfeit”; and Sam Lee
drew a darkling revolver from his blouse.
With a deft movement, Wau Shun, who had the advantage of two
eyes--though they looked in different directions and were hard to
meet--threw Sam Lee’s hand up, and snatched the pistol from him.
“’Twere easy to slay thee now, Sam Lee; and ’twere profitable,
too--if only Quong Lung were out of the way.”
“Ay, if Quong Lung were only out of the way; but Quong Lung lives
and waxes fat, and Wau Shun is his slave!”
No more was said. They turned into a narrow alley near the top of
Jackson Street, Wau Shun walking in the rear. As soon as they had
entered the shadow produced by the narrowness of the lane and by its
angle to the lighted main street, there was a sharp report, and Sam
Lee fell on his face, and coughed like one who is stricken through
the lungs.
The swarms that inhabit Chinatown began to buzz. In a few minutes
the alley was crowded with curious coolies jabbering excitedly, and
in the fifth or sixth row of those who stood round Sam Lee was Wau
Shun, watching the blood that welled from the mouth of the dying man
and prevented speech.
After Wau Shun had seen the corpse of his brother-highbinder laid
out on a slab at the morgue, he treated himself to a couple of
jorums of “hot-Scotch,” and sought his den in Cum Cook Alley.
Lighting a dim candle, he proceeded to barricade himself, and to
conceal his light, by means of a coverlet that was held in its
place, on his side of the door, by iron bars that crossed and
recrossed each other.
When all was snug, he drew from an inner pocket the roll of papers
given to him by Lee Toy, which set forth the names of the several
highbinders who belonged to his “tong,” the various loppings
accomplished by their “hatchets,” and, in a special supplement, the
instigations to certain notorious crimes by their master-mind, Quong
Lung.
Lighting a brazier, he tore out his own record from the writing, and
committed it to the flames. But that which related to Quong Lung he
placed in a receptacle cunningly concealed in the threshold of the
door.
Then, extinguishing his light, he sallied forth with the rest of Lee
Toy’s confessions in his pocket, to speak with Quong Lung, who had
awaited him these many hours with patience--and wrath.
II.
The Lesser Discipline.
The dawn of Christmas Day was rosy when Wau Shun reached Quong
Lung’s store. The bells throughout the city of San Francisco were
once more frantically announcing the birth of the Babe of Bethlehem,
as Wau Shun gave the signal of “The Brethren” on Quong Lung’s
electric bell. It was answered by a deep voice that came through a
speaking-tube, the end of which was so cleverly hidden that none but
the initiated could find it: “Peace attend thy feet! What brother
needs succor?”
“Thy servant, Wau Shun.”
“Enter, Wau Shun,” and the door was opened by some mechanical
contrivance, and closed, as soon as Wau Shun had crossed the
threshold, with a snap suggestive of a steel trap. Pressing a
concealed button, Wau Shun lit an incandescent lamp that showed him
how to avoid the thread, the breaking of which would have
precipitated a hundred-weight of iron on the head of an intruder. At
the end of the passage thus illuminated was a door, to which he
applied his pass-key and entered an apartment that was a reflex of
its occupant, in whom East and West were met. The room was decorated
and furnished in accordance with the tastes of a Chinese gentleman
of high culture; but the illumination was supplied by electricity,
and a long-distance telephone, of the latest pattern, stood at the
elbow of the stout, spectacled Chinese merchant, who sat on a great
ebony chair, gravely smoking a cigar.
This was Quong Lung, the famous head of the high-binders of the See
Yups--the most powerful “tong” in San Francisco--and who owed his
bad preëminence to the fact that he was absolutely unscrupulous,
using even his devoted friends as stepping-stones to his ambitions.
Then, too, he was a “Native Son of the Golden West,” and used the
idioms and swore with the ease of a born Californian. He had
friends--old school-fellows and college chums--among the executive
of San Francisco, and, by means of his more intimate knowledge of
what was happening, he was enabled to humiliate his rivals and
punish his enemies.
“Thou hast done well, Wau Shun,” he began, “and deservest well--but
dry tongues can not speak.”
Pouring out some whisky for himself, he pushed the bottle across to
Wau Shun, who had now seated himself on the other side of the table.
“Thy servant is enriched by thy approbation, Most Powerful,” replied
Wau Shun, draining his glass after Quong Lung had drunk.
“The passing of Lee Toy by way of fire was excellently done, Wau
Shun--most excellently done. And where is Sam Lee?”
“He is aweary and sleepeth, Great Master,” answered Wau Shun, whose
squinting was suddenly accentuated.
“May his sleep refresh him! But the end of Lee Toy, as I have
already said, was surpassingly excellent, Wau Shun. I learnt by
this”--and Quong Lung pointed with his cigar to the telephone--“I
learnt by this of the firing of the house of the white devil, whose
babe Lee Toy guarded, and how Lee Toy died to save the devilkin.”
“Ho, ho, ho!” interrupted Wau Shun, chuckling softly, and helping
himself again from the bottle.
“And the writings of Lee Toy?” asked Quong Lung, after a while.
Without a word Wau Shun laid a packet on the table.
“But these pertain to Sam Lee only,” exclaimed Quong Lung, after he
had examined the roll of papers; and his nostrils dilated slightly.
“Thou hast, doubtless, others that relate to thee and to me.”
“Now, nay, All-Seeing; the packet is as Lee Toy gave it to me--so
Sam Lee will tell thee.”
“If the dead may speak,” said Quong Lung, deliberately.
The other turned toward him with amazement and horror in his looks.
It was admirably done, but it did not even attract the attention of
Quong Lung, who quietly flicked the ash from his cigar, and went on:
“And thou wast seen by two of our brethren in the crowd that
witnessed the end of Sam Lee; and ’twere easy, too, to find
witnesses who saw thee slay Sam Lee.” Then, after a pause, he went
on: “Moreover, only fools tell lies to such as me. None may sit on
that chair and lie to me--only lift not thy voice at the proof of
it, lest death come to thee suddenly!”
The next moment the horror-stricken highbinder was writhing under
the spell of an electric current, strong enough to prevent him from
relaxing his hold on the arms of his chair, which he had grasped as
he tried to spring to his feet.
After Quong Lung had disarmed his victim, he said: “Thou wilt be
here two days hence, and at the same hour, with the other writings
of Lee Toy! Two of thy brethren await thee on the street, and will
see to thy punctuality. Drink once more, Wau Shun, thou hast need.
Ho, ho!”
III.
Sweet Counsel and “Black Smoke.”
“Roast turkey, cranberry sauce, mince pies, plum pudding,
cheese-straws, a choice between beer and champagne! Well, Quong
Lung, and what do you want of me, you prince of plotters?”
The speaker had all the outward and visible signs of one who was a
slave to opium; but under the influence of Quong Lung’s Christmas
dinner his eyes sparkled and his spirits rose to a high pitch.
“Nothing, nothing, Jim--at least nothing to speak of; and we won’t
speak of it until we have had a small black coffee, and--a small
black pipe. By the way,” he went on, “Miss Ah Moy and Miss Shun Sen
will come in presently with the coffee and pipes.”
Quong Lung’s guest, James Ray, was lank, and sallow, and of
uncertain age, because of his terrible vice, and his hair was
prematurely gray. He had been an electrical engineer of high promise
until he became an opium-fiend. Even his clothes betrayed his
failing, no less than his scanty and feeble beard and mustache and
his leaden complexion. He had attended the same Eastern college as
Quong Lung, and had imbued the latter with a taste for Shakespeare
and Byron and the Psalms of David; together they had graduated from
Yale; and then Quong Lung, recognizing the ability of his friend and
the possibilities of electricity in the career of a highbinder, had
introduced Ray to the fascination of opium-smoking; and so--through
the uses of adversity--he held the latter in pawn for his own
nefarious ends.
“Why all this magnificence, Quong Lung?” inquired Ray, after Ah Moy
and her colleague had brought in the coffee and the implements
pertaining to “black smoke.” “You have but to say the word, old man,
and, like Ariel, ‘I’ll put a girdle round the earth in forty
minutes.’”
Now the hiring of Ah Moy and Shun Sen to twang their _samyens_ for
the delectation of white devils, and hand them coffee and sing to
them, “came high,” for the damsels were famous in their way and in
great demand.
“This is too small a thing for you to notice, Jim,” replied Quong
Lung; “nothing is too good for my friend.”
“Why didn’t you add, ‘the earth is my lord’s and the fullness
thereof,’ and crush me with your compliments? As though I were a
damned coolie!”
There was some petulance in Ray’s voice, as he gave way to the
feeble irritability that attends the constant use of narcotics and
stimulants by all except Orientals. He rose to his elbow from the
mat on which he was smoking, and threw the pipe on its tray, like a
spoiled child. But Quong Lung took no notice of the little outbreak,
and Ah Moy put the pipe to his lips with her own fair hands and soon
coaxed him into complacency. When a look of contentment had once
more settled on his face, Ray said, deprecatingly: “It was the
‘dope’ that spoke, Quong Lung, and not I; forgive me, old man! And
now, what do you want?”
Quong Lung motioned to the girls to withdraw, and when he was alone
with Ray he said: “Jim, I shall hang unless you help me.”
“You must be in a bad fix, indeed, Quong Lung, if you depend on my
small arts to help you. Explain.”
“Certain papers implicating me are in the possession of one of my
blood-hounds, who has shown himself recalcitrant and ungrateful--the
damned dog! By means of the battery yonder, which you rigged up for
me, I frightened the brute considerably this morning, and he will be
here again two nights hence with such of the papers as his fears may
compel him to part with; but if his courage should revive, as it
may, and if he should come without the documents, I want to put him
under the stress of telling me where they are to be found, and then
I desire that he should never speak again!”
Quong Lung darted a look full of dangerous meaning at Ray.
“Why don’t you employ your regular bull-dogs to attend to this
unpleasant affair, Quong Lung?”
“Because their methods are coarse and their weapons clumsy.”
“But it is deuced risky to be an accessory before the fact in a
murder case, my friend.”
“No, no, Jim, not murder! Call it, rather, ‘the sudden death of an
unknown coolie, from unknown causes.’”
“And the consideration for me?”
“Two hundred dollars now,” said Quong Lung, laying a pile of notes
on the platform on which they were smoking, “and two hundred more
after the thing is over.”
“And if I refuse?”
Quong Lung shrugged his shoulders, and said, in an indifferent tone
of voice: “Life without opium, and without means of obtaining it,
were hell, as you know. Besides, so many accidents are constantly
happening in Chinatown.”
“Very well,” replied the other, rising languidly to his feet and
thrusting the notes into his pocket; “very well. You must let me
have entire possession of this room for the next two days, and
provide such assistance and implements as I may require.”
As he was leaving the room he stopped to smell a tuberose that stood
on a bamboo flower-stand. The passing act seemed to give him an
idea, for he turned suddenly to Quong Lung, saying: “See to it,
Quong Lung, that you provide plenty of punk-sticks for the eventful
night. You will need them, I am thinking. And be good to this green
brother,” pointing to the tuberose.
IV.
Concerning Cherries and Tuberoses.
An hour before the time set for the arrival of Wau Shun, Ray called
Quong Lung into the room wherein he had labored almost incessantly
during the past two days.
“All’s done,” he said, “save only the payment of my dues.”
“Proceed,” returned Quong Lung, laying ten double eagles on the
table and seating himself on his favorite ebony chair.
Ray eyed him curiously while he pocketed the money, and the
Chinaman, who seemed to notice everything, rose quickly from the
chair and said, with a smile:
“‘How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds,
Makes ill deeds done!’
Eh Jim? Now show me your trick.”
“Should somebody you dislike sit on the chair you have just left,
Quong Lung, pressure on this button”--pointing to an
innocent-looking cherry painted on a panel that hung on the
wall--“would connect the chair with the electric-light wires that
pass over your house, and make your objectionable guest the
recipient of--say, three thousand volts.”
“And then?”
“And then--slightly altering the words of your favorite poet, to
describe the result--‘his heart would once heave, and forever stand
still’; and nobody would know how your highbinder died.”
As Ray left the room, he was again attracted to the tuberose. After
smelling it, he turned round and called to Quong Lung, saying: “But
you will not leave this innocent in the room, Quong Lung; its odor
would be ruined by the punks you will burn, and by other savors.”
Then gravely saluting Quong Lung, James Ray left the Chinaman’s
house, and made his way to the office of the chief of police of San
Francisco, for even a dope-fiend has a fragmentary conscience.
V.
The Greater Discipline.
While Ray told his story to the chief of police, with all the
circumstances and detail that would exonerate him and implicate
Quong Lung, the latter met Wau Shun at his outer door, and, holding
him by the hand, escorted him to his chamber, which was dim with the
smoke of many burning punks, the odor of which filled the air.
“Those who are true to me, Wau Shun, will always find that my ‘ways
are ways of pleasantness, and all my paths are peace,’” said Quong
Lung, softly, misquoting the Psalmist.
“Thy house, Far Reacher, is the well-known dwelling of pleasantness
and peace.”
When Quong Lung would have seated Wau Shun on the chair of which the
highbinder had such a lively recollection, the coolie shook his
head, saying: “Nay, who is thy slave that he should sit in the
presence of the Most Powerful. The ground thou treadest is good
enough for him.” And Wau Shun squatted on the floor before his
chief.
“There is no harm in the chair, Wau Shun,” said Quong Lung, seating
himself on it carelessly, “no harm unless, indeed, the sitter tells
lies or have deceit in his heart.” Then, after a pause, he went on:
“The writings of Lee Toy--thou hast brought them?”
“Of a surety,” replied Wau Shun, producing a packet of papers from
his blouse.
After Quong Lung had looked through them, and satisfied himself that
they were authentic and complete, he said: “Wau Shun, the white
devils say that virtue is its own reward; but that would be poor
reward for such virtuous actions as thine. Thou shalt drink with me
first, and then expound to me how I may lighten the burden of
obligations thou hast laid on me.”
He went to the table, and pouring out two glasses of spirits, he
advanced with them on a tray to the squatting coolie.
After they had drunk, Quong Lung resumed his seat, and lighting a
cigar, he said: “It is not meet that he who hath saved my life this
day should crouch on the ground like a dog. Let Wau Shun take my own
particular chair, whereon none have sat save those I would
honor--nay, I insist”; and Quong Lung pointed to the great chair of
ebony, broad enough to accommodate two men such as himself. It was
adorned with a shield of bronze, richly carved and inlaid, that
formed its back; and it stood on a dais of burnished copper, and
might have been the throne of an Oriental potentate; and behind it
was a mirror which reflected the exquisite carving on its back.
When Wau Shun, after much protestation, had ensconced himself in a
corner of the great chair, Quong Lung once more filled the glasses,
and again they drank in silence.
“And now, Wau Shun, though I can not weigh my gold against thy
services to me, yet, I pray thee, name some reward that will not put
me to shame to bestow on thee.”
“Will the payment of fifty dollars afflict thee, my lord?”
“Nay, Wau Shun, that is the due of but a part of thy merits--the
slaying of Sam Lee, for instance. Here is more for thy other many
good deeds,” and Quong Lung tossed on the table a heavy bag that
chinked opulently. “Moreover,” he continued, “now that Lee Toy, our
keenest hatchet, is dead, some worthy successor to him must be
found, and who so worthy as Wau Shun, the slayer of the uncommon
slain, Lee Toy?”
“Further, Instigator,” interrupted Wau Shun, squinting atrociously,
for the liquor had begun to mount to his head; “further, it seems to
me that if anything happened to thee--which God forbid!--_I_ might
be found worthy to sit in this thy chair by reason of thy
recommendation, and--my worthiness.”
“Of course, of course,” said Quong Lung, looking at the point of his
cigar and crossing his knees. “The See Yups have need of strong men,
and who so strong as Wau Shun! Drink once more to thy worthiness.”
After they had disposed of the liquor and smoked awhile, Wau Shun
said, familiarly and half-insolently: “Quong Lung, thou owest me
reparation for thy insults of two nights ago; and seeing thou art
seated on the chair of humiliation” (here Wau Shun lapsed into
impudent vernacular), “you must needs do as I say or be twisted out
of shape.”
“What!” exclaimed Quong Lung, putting one hand carelessly behind his
head and resting the other against the adjacent wall, whereon was a
painted panel that glowed with cherries--“what! wouldst thou plague
me?”
“Nay, but I would discipline you,” said Wau Shun, thickly; “I would
discipline you with cramps, if need were.”
“And cramps only?” asked Quong Lung, toying with the flower-painted
panel. “’Twere dangerous to play with me so lightly. Cramps can not
touch me and are for fools alone.”
“Then I would kill you otherwise, smooth, fat hog!”