The moral tone of Chinatown is not so high that when the guide was dismissed he should feel at all offended. He was perfectly satisfied, and he said so a few minutes later as he was relating this story to some of his friends in the saloon on the corner.
From this point the Queen herself takes up the tale. She told it to her bosom friend, the Rummager, a week later, and the Rummager’s eyes bulged and her mouth opened as she heard it. More than once she was inclined to disbelieve it, and said so, but the facts were there and proven by the presence of certain articles which could be accounted for in no other way.
“He was one of the real ones,” remarked the Queen, “and I knew it as soon as I saw him. I have seen fellows stuck good and strong, but he was the limit. He was clean gone. When he came back the second time he began as all the others do, by asking me how I came to live in Chinatown. I told him to cut it out, and cut it quick, and he took my tip. He didn’t lose a minute telling me he liked me, either, and, say, he promised me everything you could think of, up and down, if I would cut the gang and go with him. He said I could have the swellest flat that money could buy, and a horse and carriage, if I liked. I thought he was kidding at first, but he soon put me wise that he was the goods. He chinned to me for about an hour, and then he told me to put on my glad rags and he would take me uptown to a feed. I was on in a minute, and nothing but a cab would do for him. We went up on Broadway, and the layout cost him $25, easy.
“We come down the line and butted into every joint that had a light out, and every place we hit was a bottle of wine. And every drink we took it was, ‘Well, will you leave that crowd?’
“On the level, once or twice he had me going, but when I thought of all the boys down here, and the good times we’re having I couldn’t do it, and I told him so. When I left him he was ossified for fair, and he gave me these things to remember him by, he said.”
Whereupon the Queen showed up a roll of bills, a scarf pin, a match box, and the Rummager believed.
She couldn’t afford to do otherwise very well, for the Queen was, as usual, doing all the buying of drinks, and the Rummager’s thirst has been compared to a barrel of sponges.
It was only the other day that I found myself wondering what had become of that pin and box. Where have they been since then and who has owned them? That they have fallen into many hands there can be no doubt, and the first to get them was the pawnbroker.
But after that!
From silks the Queen went to calico. That is a great chasm for any woman to cross, and from three rooms she came down to one. Notice how easily the human being can adjust itself to changes.