"Take you!" echoed Fabian. "Why, you are one of the 'bosses' here. You don't mean to say that you are hankering after a place where it would take you years to get as high up in the 'washee, washee' business as you are now?"
"Yes, I want go," replied Tie Co. "I want go to New York and I will pay you fifty dollars and all expense if you take me, and not say you take me to my partners."
"There's no accounting for a Chinaman," muttered Fabian; but he gladly agreed to the proposal and a night was fixed.
"What is the name of the firm you are going to?" inquired the white man.
Chinamen who intend being smuggled always make arrangements with some Chinese firm in the States to receive them.
Tie Co hesitated, then mumbled something which sounded like "Quong Wo Yuen" or "Long Lo Toon," Fabian was not sure which, but did not repeat the question, not being sufficiently interested.
He left the laundry, nodding goodbye to Tie Co as he passed outside the window, and the Chinaman nodded back, a faint smile on his small, delicate face lingering until Fabian's receding form was lost to view.
It was a pleasant night on which the two
