"All lite! Have got." And the "boy," a Chinese waiter perhaps sixty or seventy years old, quickly and noiselessly brought the bottles.
"I suppose you have had abundance of opportunity to see and judge for yourself before you came to those conclusions, Mr. Clark," said MacKay.
There was that in his tone which would have made most men careful in their reply. But Clark was too self-confident to be wary, and repeated whiskeys and sodas had made him still less cautious.
"You may bet your bottom dollar I have," he replied. "I have known niggers and Dagos since I was knee-high to a grasshopper; and I have spent every season on the China Coast for the last five or six years. Oh, yes! I know what I'm talking about. I know them from the ground up."
"Doubtless you have visited many of the churches and chapels at the different ports where you have done business, and have for yourself seen the natives at worship."
"Me visit their churches! Not on your life! What do you take me for? I take no stock in any of their joss pidgin. I'd sooner go to a native temple than to a native church. But I've never been in either."
"Then I am afraid that I must assist your memory, Mr. Clark. You were in a native church."
"Me? Never!"
"If I am not mistaken, Mr. Clark, you were a passenger on the American bark Betsy, when she was wrecked on South Point, just outside of Saw Bay, a year ago last November."
"I was. But I don't see what that has to do with the subject we were discussing."