Well, Fabian was sitting in the laundry of Chen Ting Lung & Co., telling a nice-looking young Chinaman that he was so broke that he’d be willing to take over even one man at a time.

The young Chinaman looked thoughtfully into Fabian’s face. “Would you take me?” he inquired.

“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 men set out. Fabian had a rig waiting at the corner of the street; Tie Co, dressed in citizen’s clothes, stepped into it unobserved, and the smuggler and would-be-smuggled were soon out of the city. They had a merry drive, for Fabian’s liking for Tie Co was very real; he had known him for several years, and the lad’s quick intelligence interested him.

The second day they left their horse at a farmhouse, where Fabian would call for it on his return trip, crossed a river in a row-boat before the sun was up, and plunged into a wood in which they would remain till evening. It was raining, but through mud and wind and rain they trudged slowly and heavily.

Tie Co paused now and then to take breath. Once Fabian remarked:

“You are not a very strong lad, Tie Co. It’s a pity you have to work as you do for your living,” and Tie Co had answered:

“Work velly good! No work, Tie Co die.”

Fabian looked at the lad protectingly, wondering in a careless way why this Chinaman seemed to him so different from the others.

“Wouldn’t you like to be back in China?” he asked.

“No,” said Tie Co decidedly.

“Why?”

“I not know why,” answered Tie Co.

Fabian laughed.

“Haven’t you got a nice little wife at home?” he continued. “I hear you people marry very young.”

“No, I no wife,” asserted his companion with a choky little laugh. “I never have no wife.”