For the door they rushed, sweeping everything before them. Crack! crack! crack! sounded the blows of the yachtsmen’s fists, and they gave a hoarse cheer that seemed to have in it the boom of the surf on a rocky coast.
“Hurro!” shouted Barney Mulloy, in a wild fever of excitement. “It’s mesilf thot’s not been in a bit av a scrap loike this fer a wake! It’s fun, it is! Git out av th’ way, ye pig-tailed rat-’aters! Ye nivver wur made ter live in a whoite man’s country at all, at all!”
“Say, you nefer saw such a fight as this, did I?” cried the Dutch boy, flourishing his arms in a furious manner and striking friends almost as often as foes. “Uf this don’d peat der pand, you don’d toldt me so!”
With a few exceptions, the Chinamen did not seem at all anxious to get in the way of the Americans. It was not the first occasion when an affair of a similar nature had occurred in a Chinese theatre.
Sometimes some of the bloods of the town would come down into Chinatown full of wine and “good intentions,” and it was their custom to end the racket whenever possible by “cleaning out” a Chinese theatre.
Many of the spectators on this occasion believed it was a pre-arranged plan to clean out the theatre, and so they made haste to get out themselves as soon as possible.
The boys and their sailor friends were among those who early rushed out through the door, and they clambered up the step-ladder with no small haste.
It was not difficult to find their way out, for it was only necessary to follow the crowd. Now and then a few of the Chinamen disappeared by means of side doors, but the most of them kept straight on to the open air.
The main streets of the quarter were lighted by paper lanterns, which gave out a dim, mellow light, beneath which the oriental throng looked strange and fantastic.
To Frank it seemed as if they were in Pekin instead of the American city of San Francisco.