"Give me them scissors, Dewey, or it'll be the worse for you!" exclaimed the tyrant furiously.
Dewey regarded him with a look of unmistakable contempt.
There was a murmur among the miners, who were eager for the amusement which the Chinaman's terror and ineffectual struggles would afford them.
"Give him the scissors, Dewey!" said half a dozen.
"Boys," said Dewey, making no motion to obey them, "do you know what you are about to do? Why should you interfere with this poor, unoffending Chinaman? Has he wronged any one of you?"
"No, but that ain't the point," said a Kentuckian. "We only want to play a joke on him. It won't do him no harm to cut his hair."
"Of course not," chimed in several of the miners.
"Do you hear that, Dick Dewey?" demanded O'Reilly impatiently. "Do you hear what the boys say? Give me them scissors."
"Boys, you don't understand the effects of what you would do," said Dewey, taking no notice of O'Reilly, much to that worthy's indignation. "If Ki Sing has his queue cut off, he can never go back to China."
"Is that the law, squire?" asked a loose-jointed Yankee.