JO'S ENEMIES PREPARE A TRAP
After the happy conclusion of the law-suit that had for so long disturbed their peace of mind, our lads left the court-room in company with a group of congratulatory friends. As they went out, Rob exclaimed, triumphantly, "I told you not to fret, Jo, and that everything would turn out all right."
"Yes, but it is through the goodness of Miss Lolimer."
"Who?" inquired Rob, with a puzzled expression. "Oh, you mean Annabel! Yes, isn't she fine? I say, Annabel, I don't know how we ever can thank you enough for getting us out of that scrape. It was one of the most plucky things I ever knew a girl to do."
"It wasn't half so plucky as the way you saved my 'turtle kitty' that time; besides, I was so sorry for your friend, though I didn't know he was your friend then."
"That's so. I forgot. Let me introduce him. Annabel—I mean Miss Lorimer—this is my friend, Joseph Lee, from China, only all the fellows call him Chinese Jo."
"I'm ever so glad to know you, Mr. Lee," said the girl, at the same time making a prim little bow that was half curtsey. "I never met a Chinese boy before, and I think they are awfully interesting. I mean," she added, quickly, and with a deep blush, "that we are going to China sometime, papa and I, and we want so much to know about the queer people out there. Not, of course, that you seem queer, because you are dressed in civilized—Oh, dear, what a stupid I am! But won't both of you come to our house for luncheon? Papa said I might ask you, and he is going to invite Mr. Hinckley and that Chinese gentleman who sat with the judge. Wasn't he perfectly splendid? Of course, I mean the judge, though the other is lovely, too, in his beautiful clothes."
"My dear," interrupted Mr. Lorimer, "this is Mr. Secretary of Legation Wang, who, together with Mr. Hinckley and, I trust, these young gentlemen, will lunch with us."
Mr. Wang, who, being a graduate of Yale, was quite accustomed to American ways, gravely shook hands with Annabel, as he also did with Rob; but his exchange of greetings with his own young countryman was quite different. Instead of shaking each other's hand and saying "How do you do, Mr. Wang? Happy to meet you, Mr. Lee," as is the American custom, they bowed profoundly to each other several times, all the while clasping and shaking their own hands and uttering flowery compliments in Chinese.
"How funny to shake one's own hand!" laughed Annabel, as she watched with delight this novel interchange of courtesies.
"It does not seem funny in our country, Miss Lorimer," said Mr. Wang, who had overheard the remark. "There all gentlemen, and ladies as well, wear their finger-nails so long that there would be danger of cutting, or at least scratching, each other's hands if they should exchange the courteous salute in the American way. So we shake our own hands, to avoid injuring those of our friends."
"But why do you wear your finger-nails so long?" asked Annabel. "I should think it would be very uncomfortable, and that they would get broken."
"It is an uncomfortable fashion, and a very silly one," replied Mr. Wang. "The long nails are so apt to get broken, as you suggest, that they often are protected by silver sheaths. The reason they are allowed to grow long is to show that their wearers are not obliged to labor with their hands. Chinese ladies for the same reason, or rather to show that they are not obliged to walk, but can afford to be carried about by servants, compress their feet until they are hopelessly and very nearly helplessly crippled for life."
"How dreadful!" exclaimed Annabel.
"Yes. Is it not? But is it any more dreadful than certain things done at fashion's decree in your own country? For instance, in Washington I often see ladies dancing, or shivering through long dinners, in low-necked and sleeveless gowns, which at the same time are so tightly compressed at the waist as to cause present torture and future misery. I see fashionable men dressed in exact imitation of their own servants, and only to be distinguished from them by a round bit of glass worn with much effort, and with absurd distortions of the face, in front of the right eye—not at all to aid the sight, mind you, but simply because it is fashionable. Yes, both our nations are guilty of following many absurd fashions, and each laughs at the other on account of them; but to my mind the most foolish habit of all is for us to call each other 'barbarians' because our fashions in silliness happen to differ."
In all this Annabel was so interested that the lunch-time conversation was wholly turned upon Chinese topics, with the result that Mr. Wang proved himself not only to be highly educated, widely travelled, and liberal-minded, but one of the most entertaining conversationalists any of them ever had met. So impressed were his hearers by what this versatile Chinese gentleman told them, that when the luncheon was ended Annabel regarded herself as one of the most fortunate girls in the world because of her prospect of going to China; Mr. Lorimer was thinking of the same country as probably the most interesting place they should visit during their travels; Mr. Hinckley found his views on the Chinese question greatly changed; Rob longed to get back to the land of his birth, and Jo was decidedly homesick.
For these reasons the Lorimers were pleased to learn that Mr. Wang proposed to remain in their city a day or two longer, while Mr. Hinckley was anxious to reach home and his own library, where he might quietly review his newly received impressions. Rob was equally desirous of returning to Hatton and the lessons that must be learned before he could hope to revisit China, while Jo was made happy by an invitation from Mr. Wang to remain with him during his stay in S—— and greet the other young Chinese then being educated in that vicinity, whom the secretary had invited to dine with him that very night.
Mr. Hinckley was more than willing that Jo should accept the invitation, and remain away from Hatton for a few days on account of the bitterness of feeling against him that the decision of the court was certain to have strengthened. So Jo remained behind when the Hinckleys took their departure, and that evening, passed in company with Mr. Wang and a dozen companions of his own nationality, was the very happiest he ever had known. They dined in a room by themselves, were served by Chinese waiters procured from a near-by laundry, ate their rice with chop-sticks, drank amber-colored tea without sugar or cream, and did not speak one word of anything but Chinese during the entire evening. The one drawback to their complete happiness was that during the dinner Mr. Wang received a telegram concerning some business that demanded his presence in Boston the following morning. He therefore was obliged to leave S—— on a late train that same night, much to his own regret as well as that of his guests. His final instructions to Jo were to entertain his young friends at breakfast the following morning before seeing them off on the train for their respective places of study, and then to remain in S—— until his return, which probably would be within two days.
This programme was faithfully carried out by our lad to the point of escorting his friends to the railway-station and seeing them off. One reason for his peculiar enjoyment of their company was that owing to Rob's constant companionship his own advance in learning English, as well as in acquiring general knowledge, had been so much more rapid than theirs that his young companions acknowledged his superiority in these respects with openly expressed wonder and admiration. Then, too, his experience in American law courts, that had resulted so triumphantly, caused him to rank among them as a sort of a hero, to be regarded with great respect.
All this was so flattering and so pleasant to Jo that after their departure, when for the first time he found himself without companions in a city of strangers, his extreme loneliness caused him to seek out the Chinese laundry near the hotel. There he would find other fellow-countrymen, who, if not of his own rank, at least could talk to him in his native tongue; also he fancied that by them the recent flattery which so had pleased him would be continued. Nor was he mistaken, for when he reached the laundry its inmates received him with profound kotows, indicating deep respect, and quickly provided him with tea and sweetmeats.
As Jo had been curious concerning the lives and occupations in America of these people, who, though belonging to the coolie or lowest class of Chinese, still were his countrymen, he spent more than an hour in the laundry, asking questions and acquiring much information, such as no foreigner could have gained in a lifetime. So interested did he become, that, in order to realize more fully the nature of the work they were doing, he took from one of them the flat-iron he was using and for a few minutes operated it himself.
The young student was so intent upon this novel form of investigation as not to realize that he was performing actual laundry-work directly before an open window, through which he was plainly visible to outsiders. Nor did he notice that a man, lounging on the opposite side of the street, was keeping keen watch of his performance. Even if Jo had noticed this man he would have paid no attention to him; nor would he have known that all his movements of that day had been closely followed by that same individual. But this was the case, and when Jo appeared at the open window of the Chinese laundry, evidently engaged in ironing a garment, the man smiled grimly. At the same time he produced a pocket-camera having a telescopic lens, which for a moment was levelled directly at the unsuspecting lad.
"I reckon that'll settle his business," muttered the man to himself. "Who would have thought of his playing into our hands by doing such a fool thing?"
A little later Jo, while sitting in the reading-room of his hotel, was handed a telegram, the very first he ever had received. After carefully reading the superscription, to make sure that it really was addressed to him, he tore open the brown envelope, nervously unfolded the yellow enclosure, and read as follows:
"Brevoort House, New York City.
"Have important need of you here. Take first train. Wire time of your arrival. I will meet you at station.
"(Signed) Wang Chih Tung, Secretary, etc."
"Is there any answer, sir?" asked the boy who had delivered this despatch and who stood waiting while Jo read it. "Here are blanks if you want them."
"Yes," replied our lad, speaking slowly, but thinking at top speed. "I want to send two of these same things. Can you take them and see that they go light away quick?"
"Yes, sir," replied the boy. "That is my business."
"Can you tell me how soon I can get a train for New York?"
"In ten minutes, if you hurry," answered the boy promptly.
"When will it get me to New York?"
"Ten thirty to-night."
"You are sure?"
"Sure, sir, as if I was a railroad time-table."
Relieved at so easily having obtained the information he wanted, and excited at thus being summoned by so high a dignitary as Mr. Wang, Jo wrote two despatches on blanks provided by the waiting boy, and gave them to him for delivery at the nearest telegraph-office. One was to Mr. Wang, announcing the proposed hour of his reaching New York, and the other, telling of his intended trip to that city, was addressed to Mr. Hinckley. For each of these he paid the boy twenty-five cents, and then, having no time to lose, he hurried to the railway-station. There he had barely secured a ticket for New York when an express-train thundered up to the platform. Two minutes later it was rolling swiftly away, carrying as passengers Chinese Jo and the man who had followed his movements so closely all that day.