“I come to see you on business,” the man replied in excellent English.
“How’d you get here?”
“O, I come in when other people come; and I wait till your partner go, because I want to see you alone.”
With a quick motion of his arm the man threw back one of his voluminous sleeves and pointed with his claw-like fingers to the roof and walls. Ben noted that his dress marked him as a member of the ordinary merchant class of Chinese.
“You work with the bricks and dirt,” he said, pointing to the piles of rubbish. “What you intend to do with building?”
Ben’s suspicions were aroused. “He wants to drive some bargain with me about that opium business,” he thought.
“O, I’ll sell it for lumber to some builder, I guess,” he indifferently replied.
“Not worth very much.”
“No; not very much.”