Bow Sam stood in the doorway by his sugar-cane stand and watched with
narrowed eyes an old man who shuffled uncertainly down the alley towards
him.
“_Hoo la ma!_” cried Bow Sam, in surprised Cantonese as the old man drew
near. “Hello, there! I scarcely knew you, venerable Fa’ng!”
Fa’ng, the hatchetman, straightened his bent shoulders and looked up.
There was a gleam in his deep bronze eyes that was hardly in keeping
with his withered frame.
“_Hoo la ma_, Bow Sam,” he said, his voice strangely deep and vibrant.
“You have grown very thin,” remarked Bow Sam with friendly interest.
“_Hi low_; that is true. But why carry around flesh that is not food?”
The sugar-cane vendor eyed the other shrewdly. What was the gossip he
had heard concerning Fa’ng, the famous old hatchetman? Was it not that
the old man was always hungry? Yes, that was it! Fa’ng, whose long knife
and swift arm had been the most feared thing in all Chinatown, was
starving—too proud to beg, too honest to steal.
“You have eaten well, venerable Fa’ng?” The inquiry was in a casual
tone, respectful.
“_Aih_, I have eaten well,” replied the old hatchetman, averting his
face.
“How unfortunate for me! I have not yet eaten my rice; for when one must
dine alone, one goes slowly to table. Is it not written that a bowl of
rice shared is doubly enjoyed? Would you not at least have a cup of tea
while I eat my mean fare?”
“I shall be honoured to sip tea with you, estimable Bow Sam,” replied
the hatchetman with poorly disguised eagerness.
“Then condescend to enter my poor house! Ah, one does not often have the
pleasure of your company in these days!”
Bow Sam preceded his guest to the wretched hovel that was the sugar-cane
vendor’s only home. There he quickly removed all trace of the bowl of
rice he had eaten but a moment before.
“Will you take this poor stool, venerable Fa’ng?” said Bow, setting out
the only stool he possessed, and placing it so that the hatchetman’s
back would be to the stove.
Wearily, Fa’ng sat down. Bow put out two small cups, each worn and badly
chipped, and filled them with hot tea. Then, while the hatchetman sipped
his tea, Bow uncovered the rice kettle. There was but one bowl of rice
left. Bow Sam had intended to keep it for his evening meal; for until he
sold some sugar-cane, he had no way of obtaining more food.
Behind Fa’ng’s back, Bow took two rice bowls and set them on the stove.
One bowl he heaped full for the hatchetman. In the other he put an
upturned tea bowl and sprinkled over it his last few grains of rice.
“Let us give thanks to the gods of the kitchen that we have food and
teeth and appetite,” chuckled Bow Sam, seating himself on a sugar-cane
box opposite Fa’ng.
“Well spoken,” returned the old hatchetman, quickly filling his mouth
with the nourishing rice. “_Aih_, there is much in life to make one
content.”
With his chop-sticks Bow Sam deftly took up a few grains of rice, taking
care lest he uncover the upturned tea bowl. He was deeply grateful that
he had a few teeth left, that he quite often had enough rice, and
sometimes had meat as often as once a month; but to hear the proud old
hatchetman express such sentiments on an empty stomach filled him with
admiration.
“What a virtue to be content with one’s lot!” he exclaimed, refilling
the hatchetman’s tea bowl. “Yet the younger generation are always
fretting because they think they have not enough; while, as anyone
knows, they have much more than we who first came to this land of the
white foreign devil.”
“They are young,” spoke Fa’ng, nodding his head slowly. “For us the days
have fled, the years have not tarried. And we have learned that if one
has but a bowl of rice for food and a bent arm for pillow, one can be
content.”
“_Haie!_ How can you speak so softly of the younger generation when it
is they who have robbed you of your livelihood? I know the gossip. You,
the most famous killer in Chinatown, find yourself cast out like a
worn-out broom by these young upstarts who have no respect for their
elders. Is it not true?”
With his left hand the old hatchetman made an eloquent gesture,
peculiarly Chinese, much as one quickly throws open a fan.
“Of what value are words, my friend? They cannot change that which is
changeless. A word cannot temper the wind, nor a phrase procure food for
a hungry stomach.”
“Nevertheless, I do not like such things,” persisted Sam. “I love the
old ways. You were an honourable and fearless killer. When you were
hired to slay one’s enemy you went boldly to your victim and told him
your business. Then, swiftly, even before the doomed one could open his
lips, you struck—cleaned your blade and walked your way.
“The modern killers!” Bow Sam spewed the words out as one does sour
rice. “They are too cowardly to use the knife. They hide on roofs, fire
on their victims, then throw away their guns and flee like thieves.
_Aih_, what have we come to in these days!
“It was but yesterday after mid-day rice that I had speech with Gar
Ling, a gunman of the Sin Wah tong. He stopped to buy sugar-cane, and I
told him that had I the money I would hire him. There is one of the
younger generation, the pock-marked son of Quong, the dealer in jade,
who has greatly wronged me and my honourable family name, and my
distinguished ancestors. As you very well know, one cannot soil one’s
own hands with the blood of vengeance. Moreover, I have no weapon, not
even a dull cleaver. Neither can I afford to hire a fighting man.
“I was telling all this to Gar Ling,” went on Bow, straining the last
drop of tea into Fa’ng’s bowl, “and he told me he would settle my
quarrel, but it would cost one thousand dollars. When I told him I had
not even a thousand copper _cash_, he became angry and abusive. As he
walked his way, quickly, like a foreign devil, he spat in my direction
and called me an unspeakable name.”
“_Ts, ts!_ You should have wrung his neck. Repeat to me his unspeakable
words.”
“He said,” cried Bow Sam, his face twisted in fury, “that I am the son
of a turtle!”
“_Aih-yah!_ How insulting! As anyone knows, in all our language there is
no epithet more vile!”
“That is true. But what is even worse, I did not remember until after he
had gone that he had not paid me for the piece of sugar-cane. Such is
the way of the younger generation; and we, who have been long in the
land, can do nothing.”
“Yet it is by such things that one learns the lesson of enduring
tranquillity,” remarked Fa’ng, smacking his lips and moving back from
the table.
For about the time, then, that it takes one to make nine bows before the
household gods, neither man made speech. Then Fa’ng arose.
“An excellent bowl of rice, my good friend.”
“_Aih_, it shames me to have to give you such mean fare.”
“And the tea was most fragrant.”
“_Ts_, it was only the cheapest Black Dragon.”
The two old men went to the door.
“_Ho hang la_,” said the hatchetman.
“_Ho hang la_,” echoed the sugar-cane vendor. “I hope you have a safe
walk.”
Fa’ng, the hatchetman, made his way down the alley to the rear entrance
of a pawnshop. There he spoke a few words with the proprietor.
“I know you are honest, old man,” said the pawnbroker. “But instead of
bringing it back, I hope, for your own sake, you will be able to pay
what you owe me.”
Then from a safe he took a knife with long, slender blade and a handle
of ebony in which had been carved an unbelievable number of notches.
Fa’ng took the knife, handling it as one does an object of precious
memories, concealed it beneath his tattered blouse, and went his way.
Near the entrance of a gambling house in Canton Alley the old hatchetman
met the pock-marked son of Quong, the dealer in jade.
“For the wrong you have done Bow Sam, his family name, and his
distinguished ancestors,” said Fa’ng quietly; and before the other could
open his lips the long blade was through his heart.
In front of a cigar store in Shanghai Place, Fa’ng found Gar Ling, the
gunman. “I have business of moment with you, Gar Ling,” said the
hatchetman. “Come.”
Gar Ling hesitated. He stood in great fear of the old killer, yet he
dared not show that fear before his young friends. So with his left hand
he gave a peculiar signal. A boy standing near with a basket of _lichee_
nuts on his arm turned quickly and followed the two men down the alley.
Drawing near his employer, the boy held up the basket as though
soliciting the gunman to buy. Gar’s hand darted swiftly into the basket,
beneath the lichee nuts, and came out with a heavy automatic pistol
which he quickly concealed beneath his blouse.
The old hatchetman knew all the tricks of the young gunman, but he
pretended he had not seen. As they turned a dark corner, he paused.
“For the insulting words you spoke to Bow Sam,” he said calmly, and the
long blade glided between the gunman’s ribs.
As Fa’ng drew the steel away, Gar Ling staggered, fired once, then
collapsed.
Bow Sam stood in the doorway by his sugar-cane stand and watched with
narrowed eyes an old man who shuffled uncertainly down the alley toward
him.
“_Hoo la ma!_” he cried, as the old man drew near. “I did not expect to
see you again so soon.”
The old hatchetman did not raise his head nor reply. Staggering, he
crossed the threshold and fell on his face on the littered floor.
With a throaty cry Bow Sam slammed the door shut. He bent over Fa’ng.
“This knife,” said the hatchetman; “take it—to Wong the pawnbroker. Tell
him—all. Worth—more—than I owe.”
“But what’s——”
“For the wrong that the pock-marked one did you, for the insult Gar Ling
spoke to you, I slew them,” said Fa’ng, with sudden strength. “My debt
is paid. _Tsau kom lok._”
“_Haie!_ You did that! Why did you do that? I could never pay you! And
look! _Aih-yah_, oh, how piteous! You are dying!”
With awkward fingers, the vendor of sugar-cane tried to staunch the flow
of blood where Gar Ling’s bullet had struck with deadly effect.
“Pay me?” breathed Fa’ng the hatchetman. “Did you—not—feed me? Can
one—put a value—on food—when the stomach—is empty? _Aih_, what—matters
it? A life,”—his eyelids fluttered and closed—“a life—a bowl of
rice....”