"Wong," I said, "how fashion you talkee so?
"No can slmoke stlate loom!
"No tlouble slmoke stlate loom. Can slmoke stlate loom easy, see?"
Wong Lee flagged me with a word of warning: "No can slmoke stlate room. Slmoke loom, can do."
"Wong," I said, "how fashion you talkee so? 'No can slmoke stlate loom!' No tlouble slmoke stlate loom. Can slmoke stlate loom easy, see?"
If anyone tells you the Chinese can't see a joke, tell them to guess again. Wong saw that little one—saw it through a cloud of smoke, at that. Wong shut my stateroom door, like a boy in the buttery stealing jam, and said: "Lofficers findee out. They flobid."
"All right, Wong, I won't tell them if you don't," I said. And Wong didn't—Wong certainly didn't betray me.
The further we sailed the more I became attached to the boy—he took such excellent care of me—I got so I really loved that boy.
All Wong's other duties seemed easy compared to his efforts, in my behalf, to see that my slight and harmless infraction of the ship's rules should not be discovered. If I dropped a little ash, Wong was on hand to brush it up. A tell-tale cigar stub, carelessly left—Wong was there to whisk it out of sight with: "Lofficers may come insplection any time. No can tell when."
