“WHO’S AFRAID OF A CHINAMAN?”
Next morning Johnny wandered over to the _Sentinel_ office. He wanted to
thank the editor for the fine publicity he had given the game. More than
this he always had enjoyed a half hour in the box-like office of C. K.
Lovell, or “old C. K.” as the people of the city had come to call him.
C. K. was something of a character. More than six feet tall, a
broad-shouldered, slouching figure of a man, with masses of gray hair and
bushy eyebrows, slumped down in his office chair, he resembled a shaggy
St. Bernard dog basking in the sun.
“H’llo Johnny!” he greeted. “Fine game yesterday. Sort of queer, though.
Rather unusual about that pitcher! And did you notice that airplane? What
did you make of that?”
“Haven’t got it made yet.” Johnny dropped into a chair. “Tough about that
pitcher though. It must not happen again.
“But say!” he enthused. “Wasn’t that a grand crowd! Boys owe you a lot.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” the editor laughed good-naturedly. “Boys deserved
it. Fine lot of boys. Be a bigger crowd than ever next week. What about
that electric umpire? Think it will work?”
“Sure will.”
“Call strikes and balls, and all that?”
“Sure will, C. K.”
“Dodge pop bottles too?” C. K. laughed.
“No. Pop bottles would be bad for his eyes. Got forty eyes, that umpire
has.” Johnny laughed. “Guess the crowd will go easy on that, though.
“You see,” Johnny went on as the editor showed his interest by hitching
up in his chair, “an electric eye is like a radio tube. When a beam of
light is sent to it from across a space it stays just so until the light
is shut off by some object, say a baseball. Then it sets up a howl. If
you connect it with a phonograph attachment, you can make it call out
‘Foul ball!’”
“Interesting if true,” C.K. drawled. “Sure ought to draw a crowd.
“Say Johnny!” The editor leaned forward to speak in a tone little more
than a whisper. “Heard anything about Federal agents being around town?”
“Federal agents!” Johnny stared. “No. What for?”
“I’ve heard they’re looking for a Chinaman, a little fellow—name’s Tao
Sing, I believe.”
“Tao Sing!” Johnny started. A mental picture of Tao Sing in the small
room at the back of the Chinese spice shop flashed into his mind.
“Thought I knew them all,” said C.K. “This must be a new one.”
“Why should Federal agents want a Chinaman? Who’s afraid of a Chinaman?”
This last slipped from Johnny’s lips unbidden.
“Who’s afraid of a Chinaman!” C.K. sat up straight quite suddenly.
“Plenty of people afraid of a Chinaman, Johnny. Plenty!
“A Chinaman looks dull and sleepy enough,” he went on. “So does a big old
tom cat. But let a dog come around the corner and see what the cat does
to him. A Chinaman’s like that. He’ll go up like a rocket most any time.
“I worked down near Frisco’s old Chinatown, Johnny, years ago,” he went
on. “Got to be sort of an amateur guide. Went with the police when they
raided Chinese gambling joints and opium dens. Say! I can hear the steel
door bang yet when the first Chink gave the warning. Bang! Bang! Bang!
And sometimes it wasn’t a door that banged either.” His voice dropped.
“Johnny, things happened there I wouldn’t dare tell about—not even now.
And that was a long time ago, a long time ago.” C.K. settled back in his
chair.
“Well, I—” Johnny got to his feet a trifle unsteadily. “Guess I better
get going.”
“Don’t hurry, Johnny.”
“Got to go.”
Johnny did hurry. He was afraid he might tell what he knew about Tao
Sing. He was not ready to do that—not just yet.
“But boy, oh boy!” he whispered. “Would what I know about that little
Chink make front page stuff! First column in every city!” He could see it
now: “CHINAMAN INVENTS THOUGHT-RECORDING CAMERA. NO MAN’S THOUGHTS HIS
OWN.”
He was sorely tempted to release the story at once. On sober thought,
however, he decided he was not ready to do that—not yet!
“So they’re looking for Tao Sing, those Federal agents,” he thought.
“Wonder why? Wonder if the think-o-graphs and the thought-camera have
anything to do with that?” He recalled his visit to the Chinese Chamber
of Commerce, of the pictures he had taken of Wung Lu’s thoughts and how
he had delivered them to Tao Sing. The thought was disturbing. “Ought not
to have been snooping round gathering up another fellow’s thoughts, then
peddling them to someone else,” he grumbled. “And yet—” ah yes, and
yet—if he had not done that he could not have had the thought-camera for
his own use.
“I’ll use it a lot more,” he assured himself. “Find out all sorts of
queer things for C.K. He’ll run them in his paper and make a scoop.”
But would he return to the Chinese Chamber of Commerce? Well, not right
away. He recalled what C.K. had said of things that had happened in old
Frisco’s Chinatown, and a chill ran up his spine.
“Fellow’d think—”
No matter what he’d think. Here was Goggles.
“Look here, Johnny!” Goggles exclaimed. “I heard you found out about that
airplane that was over the ball field yesterday.”
“Didn’t find out much—just that a pilot from over at the flying field
took two men up.”
“Who were they?”
“Wish I knew. The pilot said they were from Hillcrest.”
“If they were it should be easy to find them. Not many new people in
Hillcrest. Only about half a dozen stop at the hotel. Rest live in
houses. I’ll get ’em. Give me time.” Goggles’ big eyes gleamed behind his
thick glasses. “I’m an amateur detective, Johnny.”
“Done a little of that myself,” Johnny said with a grin. “Not in a small
city, though. Guess I’ll leave that to you.”
“I’ll find ’em, Johnny.” Goggles was away.
Johnny smiled as he watched him hurry down the street. Goggles sure was
an interesting boy. He dug into everything just as a gopher digs into the
earth. Chemistry, electricity, detective work, it was all the same to
him.
“Little cities are surely interesting,” was Johnny’s mental comment. “In
big cities everyone tries to be just like everyone else. People think
alike, walk alike, dress the same, everything. In a little city everyone
is different.”
Then he brought himself up with a jerk. There was the thought-camera.
Somehow, since talking to C.K. about the Chinese, he found himself all
but overcome with a desire to hide the thought-camera in some very dark
and secret spot. In the end, after hurrying home, he buried it deep among
the clothes in his trunk, locked the trunk, then hid the key.
“So they’re after Tao Sing!” he murmured low. “Wonder if they’ll find
him. And if they do, I wonder—” he did not finish that last wonder.