However, the percentage being sixty-nine against him,
the chances are, as a general thing, that “he
get whip heself.” We could not see that
these lotteries differed in any respect from our own,
save that the figures being Chinese, no ignorant white
man might ever hope to succeed in telling “t’other
from which;” the manner of drawing is similar
to ours.
Mr. See Yup keeps a fancy store on Live Fox street.
He sold us fans of white feathers, gorgeously ornamented;
perfumery that smelled like Limburger cheese, Chinese
pens, and watch-charms made of a stone unscratchable
with steel instruments, yet polished and tinted like
the inner coat of a sea-shell. As tokens of
his esteem, See Yup presented the party with gaudy
plumes made of gold tinsel and trimmed with peacocks’
feathers.
We ate chow-chow with chop-sticks in the celestial
restaurants; our comrade chided the moon-eyed damsels
in front of the houses for their want of feminine
reserve; we received protecting Josh-lights from our
hosts and “dickered” for a pagan God or
two. Finally, we were impressed with the genius
of a Chinese book-keeper; he figured up his accounts
on a machine like a gridiron with buttons strung on
its bars; the different rows represented units, tens,
hundreds and thousands. He fingered them with
incredible rapidity—in fact, he pushed them
from place to place as fast as a musical professor’s
fingers travel over the keys of a piano.
They are a kindly disposed, well-meaning race, and
are respected and well treated by the upper classes,
all over the Pacific coast. No Californian gentleman
or lady ever abuses or oppresses a Chinaman, under
any circumstances, an explanation that seems to be
much needed in the East. Only the scum of the
population do it—they and their children;
they, and, naturally and consistently, the policemen
and politicians, likewise, for these are the dust-licking
pimps and slaves of the scum, there as well as elsewhere
in America.
I began to get tired of staying in one place so long.
There was no longer satisfying variety in going down
to Carson to report the proceedings of the legislature
once a year, and horse-races and pumpkin-shows once
in three months; (they had got to raising pumpkins
and potatoes in Washoe Valley, and of course one of
the first achievements of the legislature was to institute
a ten-thousand-dollar Agricultural Fair to show off
forty dollars’ worth of those pumpkins in—however,
the territorial legislature was usually spoken of
as the “asylum"). I wanted to see San
Francisco. I wanted to go somewhere. I
wanted—I did not know what I wanted.
I had the “spring fever” and wanted a
change, principally, no doubt. Besides, a convention
had framed a State Constitution; nine men out of every
ten wanted an office; I believed that these gentlemen
would “treat” the moneyless and the irresponsible
