Page:The Curious Republic of Gondour, and Other Whimsical Sketches.djvu/99

Rh “This Ching divil comes till Ameriky to take the bread out o’ dacent intilligent white men’s mouths, and whin they try to defind their rights there’s a dale o’ fuss made about it.”

They began to threaten my benefactor, and as he saw no friendliness in the faces that had gathered meanwhile, he went on his way. He got many a curse when he was gone. The policemen now told me I was under arrest and must go with them. I asked one of them what wrong I had done to any one that I should be arrested, and he only struck me with his club and ordered me to “hold my yap.” With a jeering crowd of street boys and loafers at my heels, I was taken up an alley and into a stone-paved dungeon which had large cells all down one side of it, with iron gates to them. I stood up by a desk while a man behind it wrote down certain things about me on a slate. One of my captors said:

“Enter a charge against this Chinaman of being disorderly and disturbing the peace.”

I attempted to say a word, but he said: