“Ah, that man make you trouble already?”
“Yes, trouble enough. Come, tell me what you know about him?”
“For what object should I tell you? Perhaps, it might make me trouble.”
“You say when I have trouble come and see you. I have trouble,—I come. You tell me what you know,—I give you ten dollars.”
The Chinese regarded him with a sphinx-like stare. “O, ten dollars is not much money to me,” he remarked, indifferently. “I like to rent from you; that’s all. On that day I speak to you I go with the crowd to see what you do. I hear Mr. Fish talk to old man.”
“Old man with a big gray hat and a cane?” Ben eagerly inquired.
“Yes. I suppose those men think I not understand much English, for they not pay much attention to me. Mr. Fish say to old man that it too bad to lose so much money. They mean your gold—they watch it. Then they talk about a lease; and old man say it not good any more. Mr. Fish say he will fix book at City Hall, then stop you and work for gold himself. He say he will give the old man some.”
“I can’t understand,” said Ben, “why, if the lease has expired, he should need to fix the record? Did he say anything else?”
“No; that’s all I hear.”
“Well, that’s helped me some, perhaps. Here’s your ten dollars.”