On a long table in the center of the room a metal lamp in a dish burned dimly. The tired laundrymen snored or breathed heavily. Here a muscular brown arm hung limply over the side of a bunk below the curtain, and there a foot protruded. The door to the old man’s room was open, and I stood there a long time till I could pick out his gentle, regular breathing from the chorus of wheezes, grunts, and snores in the bunk room. I had hoped to find him lying on his back. I don’t know just why, but that was the way I had him in my rehearsals. Sure enough he was in that position, sleeping like a baby.
Holding the handkerchief at arm’s length, I saturated it liberally with the chloroform and returned
the bottle to my pocket. Then I knelt beside him and held the handkerchief above his nostrils. With the first breath of it he stirred uneasily, and slowly turned over, facing the wall. Here was something I hadn’t anticipated. I was sure he hadn’t enough; he breathed regularly again. I must give him more. Reaching over him, I held the stuff near his nose as before. One whiff, and he floundered away from it, turning over, facing me, but still asleep.
I grew alarmed. This tossing from side to side would soon wake him. I thought of giving it up and going away quietly. My heart was pounding with the suspense. It seemed to grow and expand till it filled my chest and almost stopped my breath. I must go through with it. Carefully this time, I held the handkerchief near his face with both hands. His body twitched nervously now. His breathing was labored. I was sure of him, and held it closer.
With a scream that woke every Chinaman in the bunk room, he sat bolt upright, and throwing his arms out fastened his clawlike fingers in my clothes.
Believing he was about to be murdered, the old man fought and screamed in a frenzy of fear. I saw red-handed capture in front of me, and tried desperately to throttle him. The noise of our struggle had roused the sleepers in the back room and I could hear their startled cries as they dropped out of their bunks. I had no thought of the money now; it was a question of getting away. Just when the old man was exhausted and I was in a fair way to get out of his clutches, some of the more daring Chinamen from the back room rushed in. I got a blow on the head that knocked me half out, and they fell on me like a pack
of wolves, smothering me with kicks, cuffs, digs, and scratches. The whole thing was over quicker than I can write it. I was stretched out on my back on the floor with two Chinamen holding each of my arms down, two sitting on each leg, and another with both hands in my hair. They all chattered at once. Then one came with a lamp, and I was inspected curiously, like some strange, fearsome monster that had been trapped.
The old man, now recovered from the battle, gave a sharp order. A short, muscular, knotty-legged China boy went to the back room and returned with a rope. I was carefully raised to a sitting position and my arms held to my sides while the boy threw a couple of half hitches around my body, pinioning me safely. The rope was then run to my ankles, where he deftly tied some more strange and wonderful Chinese knots, and I was secured; scratched, bruised, bleeding, and asking myself if they were going to send for the police or execute me on the spot.
Another order from the boss and they lifted me bodily and sat me on a box in the corner of the little room. They stood by, eyeing me in silence now. The old man sat on his pallet. There was an odor of chloroform in the room, but he did not appear to be any the worse for what he had inhaled. Our struggle had probably worn it off. He picked the handkerchief from the floor where it had fallen and sniffed it.
Holding it out toward me, he asked in fair English: “What for, him?”