"To find out how many passengers are ticketed for to-night's boat and get them started," was the reply.
"You don't mean that our passengers are to be Chinamen?"
"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."