She leaned back her head against the cool corridor wall, anxious and tired, but well content with her night’s work.
And she had left her three jade bangles (and they were good) and her seven silver ones and her stick-pin of seed pearls and coral with Yat Jung How. And almost she had pawned her soul to him, and had quite pawned all she would earn for years.
Heathen Chinee!
CHAPTER XXIV
In the Clutch of the Tongs
THE next day there was still no word of Basil, and at the Steamship Company’s hong the tangle was steadily tightening.
Holman sat glowering at a telegram he was reading for the third or fourth time, but looked up impatiently as a Chinese clerk came in and stood waiting to speak.
“What now?”
“Coolie men talkee muchee. No plenty money, no can do plenty work.”
“Fetch the compradore here,” Holman snapped, thrusting the telegram into his waistcoat.