Page:Weird Tales v02n04 (1923-11).djvu/69

68 should not have been startled by it at all.

"What is this, Sam Wong?" I asked, amused.

"Ah Foo," said Sam Wong.

I was puzzled.

Sam Wong laughed.

"Ah Foo," he said. "My velly good flend, Ah Foo."

We descended to the smoking-room without my having seen the bronze image. We had both forgotten it.

Although at the moment the strange affair both puzzled and alarmed me, it had almost escaped my memory next day, I thought no more of it. Sam Wong had so many queer things in his establishment and a wax doll which he might have acquired from any bankrupt traveling showman did not seem particularly remarkable.

But two weeks later I noticed a familiar small figure in the shooting gallery on Magazine Street, two blocks from Chinatown. I turned in, to see if my surmise was at all correct. It was really Sam Wong. He was firing with remarkable accuracy at the round targets. Two times out of three he penetrated the bull's-eye, and the bell rang.

He smiled when I accosted him.

"Me velly good shlot," he said.

The gallery-keeper smiled patronizingly.

"He's learning fast," he said. "Three weeks ago he couldn't have hit a barn."

I decided at once that this activity on Sam Wong's part boded no good for Ah Foo. And yet I could hardly believe that Sam Wong would really shoot his enemy. There are so many better ways that a Chinaman knows to dispose of an "obstacle."

"Sam Wong," I said at his den that night, "don't make a fool of yourself. The penalty for shooting a man in this country is hanging."

He smiled.

"In Lome," said Sam Wong, "Chinaman do as the Lomans do. Melican gentlemen shoot and kill. Sam Wong follow clustom of cluntry. Hang? All same, no difference."

RS. WONG whispered in my ear for the hundredth time, that she was desperately afraid Sam Wong was soon going to murder Ah Foo. He caught the words or the last words, anyway. He turned from his task at the other side of the room, smiling affably.

"Ah Foo," he said. "My velly good flend, Ah Foo."

Mrs. Wong shuddered.

That was five days ago.

I was at Sam Wong's last night. It was a very strange thing I saw there. If it were not for the morning paper before me, I would think I had dreamed it.

When I arrived Sam Wong was in a very nervous state. He was highly excited. He did not wish me to smoke at once. He wished me to talk. I sat down, rather impatiently. Sam Wong sat down on the couch beside me, nervously, and began to talk.

"Many thing you know nothing about," he said, "Chilaman know. Melican men velly iglorant. 'Lectricity? Yes. 'Lectricity, all. Mind? Nothing. You know nothing in this cluntry. 'Lectricity not wisdom. Mind is wisdom."

I followed him but vaguely. He was too excited for coherent speech.

"You Orientals know much more than we do about the mind, Sam Wong," I said, "and nobody is quicker to admit it than we. You are older and wiser in China. Hypnotism and clairvoyance are still, with us, in their infancy—"

"You my velly good flend?" demanded Sam Wong, suddenly interrupting.

"Why, yes," I said.

"Clum," said Sam Wong.

I followed him above-stairs to his sanctum.

As I entered the room, the first thing that met my eye was the waxen image—his very good friend, Ah Foo—which was in bright light. Two braziers on either side on the floor, from the flames of which thin fiery vapors mounted with a pungent odor, cast over it a golden illumination. Otherwise the room was not lighted. The waxen image of Ah Foo stood out very brilliantly. And I noted that the figure had been dressed in ceremonial robes of violet and silver. Also, with a queer premonition of impending evil, I saw that a small red card, no larger than a postage stamp, was pinned on the left breast, precisely over the heart.

"Slit down," said Sam Wong.

I sat down upon a couch toward which he motioned. I felt a sudden nausea of horror, which I could not explain. I glanced about nervously for Mrs. Wong, but she was not in evidence.

"What's the meaning of this, Sam Wong?" I demanded. "You don't mean to say that you worship this gargoyle?"

Sam Wong stepped to a small table directly across the room from the figure. He laughed.

"Worship?" he asked. "Sam Wong worship? This fligure not for worship."

Suddenly he became very quiet and restrained. He carefully picked up some object from the table. With his left hand he waved toward the figure as if to introduce it to me again. He was very ceremonious.

"Ah Foo," he said. "My velly good flend, Ah Foo."

And suddenly he raised a revolver and leveled it before him. For five seconds he aimed tensely, unwaveringly, his small eyes boring fierily at the figure between the braziers. Then he fired. I had sat dumbfounded at the spectacle. The deafening report in the small room startled me back into my wits. As the smoke cleared I saw with admiration that the bullet had pierced the little red card at its geometrical center. I laughed nervously.

"Good shot, Sam Wong," I said. "I hope this has eased your spleen."

He lay the revolver on the table, laughing softly.

"Tlen minutes past tlen," he said.

I glanced at my watch. It was, precisely, ten minutes past ten.

"Clum," said Sam Wong, very affably, rubbing his withered hands.

"Clum. We smoke. No pay. You my velly good flend."



WITH health boards of the State of Virginia exercising the utmost vigilance in an effort to check the spread of the fatal malady know as "devil's grip," which is sweeping Virginia and which has appeared in Delaware and other parts of the country, new cases continued to be reported to the authorities. Chief Health Officer Hudson, of the Richmond health bureau, was appraised of three new cases recently, bringing the total thus far in Richmond alone to forty-eight.

Dr. Hudson said that as the malady had not been made reportable by the city or the state health boards, there are probably some case that have not been brought to the attention of the state health commissioner. 