Larry Dexter, Reporter; Or, Strange Adventures in a Great City

by Howard Roger Garis

He waited in the telephone station until the reporter from the Leader arrived. Then, accompanied by him, Larry went back to Chinatown. The other reporter got a lot of information about the riot, and, with what Larry had told him, soon had enough for a good lively story.

“Now here goes to see what’s in that house,” murmured Larry, when the reporter had left him. “I hope I get on the track of the Rising Sun. I wonder what it means, anyhow.”

Not without some little fear did he enter the dark hallway. It was not a pleasant place. There were odd and noisome smells, for the place, like most of those in Chinatown, was more or less of an opium joint. Then there was the odor of the Joss sticks burning in a sort of improvised temple in the rear of the first floor.

Up the stairs Larry went. He hardly knew what he was going to do, nor, if he was questioned by anyone, did he know what he would say. He was trusting to luck. As he passed through the dimly-lighted halls a door would open here and there, and the head of a Chinese would be poked out. But the portal was quickly closed again when the owner of the head saw it was an American youth.

After a riot such as had just transpired, the Chinese had no desire to answer embarrassing questions such as they knew the Americans asked. The Americans were too curious, the Celestials thought. So it was best to stay in one’s room, and pretend not to hear or see anything. Thus Larry was not interfered with or molested, as he might have been on another occasion.

Though he had no definite object in view, Larry had an idea he might chance on some evidence as to where the man lived who had pawned the ring, or might discover some trace of the sign of the Rising Sun. He looked about on the walls and doors of the halls. There were many devices painted thereon. Dragons, snakes, strange birds, and grinning heads.

“I guess I’ll go back and tell Mr. Newton,” thought Larry. “He’ll know how to go about this better than I do.”

However, there remained the third and top floor hall to inspect, and Larry climbed the stairs to that. He walked from the front to the rear.

“Nothing here, I guess,” he murmured.

Then, with a sudden beating of his heart, he caught sight, on the door of a room at the end of the corridor, of a crudely-painted rising sun, with red and yellow rays radiating from it, as it was coming up from behind a mountain.