“That Chinaman,” he said after a time, “is not a Chinaman at all! That’s Sloan, the Washington secret service man!”
“But he looks like a Chink!” insisted Carl.
“Certainly,” answered Gilmore. “That’s why he has been assigned to this class of work.”
“Can he talk like a Chink?” asked Ben.
“As natural as life!” was the reply.
“Well, he don’t know much English,” grinned Ben, “if you leave it to me. All he said was ‘Savvy you, alle same’ and ‘No can do!’”
Again Gilmore broke into a roar of laughter.
“That’s one of his old tricks,” he said. “He’s so stuck on his make-up and his pidgin English that he seeks to keep up the deception when there’s no need of it.”
“Then we ought to know why they tied him up!” Ben declared.
“It’s easy enough to guess,” Gilmore answered. “He tried to play in with the crowd of smugglers and Chinks, and was detected and tied up.”