"Yes, of course. I thought I told you so first thing this morning when you asked me what the sloop carried."
"No. You only said passengers and freight."
"I ought to have said 'chinks.' But what's the odds? 'Chinks' are passengers, aren't they?"
"Do you mean Chinamen? Are 'chinks' Chinamen?"
"That's right," replied Bonny.
"Well," said Alaric, who had been on the Coast long enough to imbibe all a Californian's contempt for natives of the Flowery Kingdom, "if I'd known that 'chinks' meant Chinamen, and dope meant opium, I should have been too much ashamed of what the Fancy carried ever to tell any one about it."
"I hope you won't," responded Bonny. "There isn't any necessity for you to that I know of."
"But I have already. There was a man on the wharf while I was getting aired who asked me what our cargo was. Just to see what he would say I told him 'chinks and dope,' though I hadn't the slightest idea of what either of them meant."
"My! but that's bad!" cried Bonny, with an anxious look on his face. "I only hope he wasn't a beak. They've been watching us pretty sharp lately, and I know the old man is in a regular tizzy-wizzy for fear we'll get nabbed."
Before Alaric could ask why they should be nabbed, Won Lung, the proprietor of the establishment, who also acted as interpreter, came to where they were standing, greeted Bonny as an old acquaintance, looked curiously at Alaric, and announced that thirty-six of his boarders had procured tickets for a passage to the Sound on the Fancy.