"Didn't you tell me one time that Chuan Kai had a regular den upstairs where no one ever went—except the Chinks?"
"I guess so," said Tracey.
"The trouble with you," was Bassett's next remark, "is that you can't see a real chance when it's right in front of your nose. Now listen, and I'll tell you something."
The result of the conversation that went on between Bassett and Campbell during the next quarter of an hour was that Campbell finally got up from the table and said:
"We'll talk to Chuan Kai."
As an outcome of what passed between the two members of Ridgley School and Chuan Kai, an agreement was made which involved the payment of a certain amount of money. Chuan Kai counted the bills and slipped them out of sight within the folds of his loose-fitting coat. He had more than one reason for undertaking to help these two young members of the white race; they had money which moved from their pockets to his pockets and they had promised him more; the owner of the building in which Chuan Kai had established the business of the Oriental Eating Palace was Campbell, the leather dealer. Third reason, and greatest in the Chinese mind, was the fact that years ago, but not so long but that the memory of it was as vivid as a lightning flash on a black night, Campbell—who had not been above turning his hand to various undertakings that, though murky of purpose, were productive in returns—had circumvented certain laws that prevented a yellow man from gaining entrance to the land of the Americans. The father of this youth held Chuan Kai in the hollow of his hand, and Chuan Kai knew that a few words spoken to the enforcers-of-law would send him away from these shores, where living came so easily, back to China where stalked a specter which he had reason to fear with the fear of one whose heart trembles like the heart of a field mouse that hears the cry of the long-taloned owl. Those reasons trooped through the Oriental's mind as his black eyes shifted from the face of Campbell to the face of Bassett.
"You understand," said Bassett. "It's an initiation for one of our school societies and it must be always a secret—never tell any one we had anything to do with it. You understand?"
Yes, Chuan Kai understood; he knew English and he knew well enough what societies were; this he imagined was a "play" society, the kind with which young Americans amused themselves, quite unlike some societies he knew about.
Chuan Kai called out suddenly two words that sounded to Bassett and Campbell like "Ka-wah changsee", and within twenty seconds one of the Chinese waiters stood in the doorway with an expectant look in his eyes. More words of Chinese like pebbles rattling over stones and falling into water flowed from the singsong lips of Chuan Kai. The waiter went away and came back with a broad-shouldered Chinaman whose sleeves were rolled up, revealing sinewy yellow muscles. Campbell and Bassett guessed that he came from the kitchen where he had been cutting meat, for his hands were red and the apron he wore was stained. Chuan Kai spoke to these two hench-men at some length; they replied in guttural syllables that signified understanding.
A little after dark, on that same Friday evening, Teeny-bits came back from supper at Lincoln Hall and went up to his room. He had taken a walk with Neil Durant and Ned Stillson and had made up his mind that he would go to bed early and keep his thoughts away from the things that were troubling him. He had started to undress and had removed his shirt and collar, when some one shouted up from below: