“It says, my son,” replied the Chinese merchant soberly, “that he who gets knowledge and discovers secrets by hard labor shall reap a reward, but he who obtains them some easy way will have cause for regret!”
Johnny started and stared. Did Wung Lu know of the thought-camera? Was this some sort of warning? He could not so much as guess the answer, for Wung Lu’s round face was as silent and expressionless as a placid lake at sunset.
The thought disturbed him. Soon he excused himself and started for home. While still in Chinatown, passing a narrow alley, he was startled by two dark figures leaping at him from the dark. Johnny was quick. He could run and dodge like a hare. This was his golden opportunity. Dodging to the right, he missed the two figures only by inches, caught a glimpse of their tense yellow faces, then shot away at a desperate pace.
He would soon have outdistanced them but for one thing. So startled was he that he at once lost his direction. Before he realized it, with his pursuers hot on his tracks, he found himself in a blind corner. The street, ending in a wall, closed him in.
“Got—got to get out of here,” he thought with a touch of despair.
The steel frame of a building in process of erection loomed above him. Before him, erected to keep onlookers out, was a high board fence.
One thing saved him. A large sign, POST NO BILLS, had been nailed to this wall. More than an inch thick, the frame about this sign offered a precarious hand and foot hold. He went up and over like a cat.
There were, however, others with climbing ability. Before he could catch his breath and ask himself, “What can they want?” the foremost of the men was atop the fence.
Before Johnny was the steel framework of the new building. So, up he went, one story, two, three, with the little yellow men only one jump behind. At the top was a swinging crane. From it a long chain dangled. Across a narrow space, not fifteen feet away, was the roof of a building. “Get the chain swinging,” he thought excitedly. “Swing over. Jump.”
At once the chain began to swing. His pursuer’s hoarse breathing came to him as he let go and swung out over space.