"What do you take me for?" demanded Harold, of fended. "I am not in the habit of getting intimate with street boys."
Warner Powell laughed.
"I am not so proud as you, Nephew Harold," he said. "Travelers pick up strange companions. In San Francisco I became intimate with a Chinaman."
"You don't mean it?" exclaimed Harold, in incredulity and disgust."
"Yes, I do."
"You weren't in the laundry business with him, were you?" went on Harold, with a sneer.
"No," he answered aloud. "The laundry business may be a very good one—I should like the income it produces even now—but I don't think I have the necessary talent for it. My Chinese friend was a commission merchant worth at least a hundred thousand dollars. I wasn't above borrowing money from him sometimes."
"Of course, that makes a difference," said Mrs. Tracy, desiring to make peace between her brother and son. "He must have been a superior man. Harold thought you meant a common Chinaman, such as we have in Chicago."
The reunited family sat down to supper together.
After supper Warner made an excuse for going out.