Achmed Abdullah

“ Yung Long looked at Nag Sen Yat. The latter looked back, slowly closing one heavy-lidded, opium-reddened eye. There was an exchange of wordless questions and answers. These two understood each other. As for Nag Cha Lee, the third, the youngest, they would talk to him afterward. But here was Ta Chen, the millionaire, their best client. Here was, furthermore, Tsing Yu-ch’ing, the newspaper man, keenly alive to every word and gesture. It was one thing to gossip—to gossip with other Chinese. That did not matter; it was a sealed book to the coarse-haired barbarians. ”

“ Desire—envy—jealousy—hate—resolve! Like ghosts they were about me—all day, when I hurried through the streets, my black-leather bag filled with money and commercial paper, when I saw the rich Pell Street merchants in their houses and shops, and at night, when I lay in my little room above Soey Kwai’s bank. Yes—desire and hate and envy—jealousy—resolve—and ruthlessness! Like ghosts! At first these ghosts—gray ghosts, crimson ghosts—had but the faintest spark of life, stirring me up so little that they left no more than a blurred, indistinct impression upon my soul. ”

“ Nag Sen Yat smiled. “It is written in the Book of the Yellow Emperor that it is only the relative value which makes evil evil—and good good.”
“And you,” asked Ta Chen, addressing Nag Cha Lee; “what would you say?”
Nag Cha Lee did not look up.
“Who am I,” he whispered, “the very little and worthless one, to bandy words with my wise and older brothers?”
Then laughter, sharp, crackling, pitiless, and Ta Chen made a derisive gesture with thumb and second finger.
“Ahee! Ahoo!” he cried. “It is true! Dollars are golden pills which cure all ills. ”

“ Yung Long chimed in.
“He is alive,” came Ta Chen’s flat, cozy accents, with just the brittle suspicion of a laugh. “He has made his million, and more millions, and”—dropping his voice to a minatory purr—“he gives you orders to buy and sell for him. You are in his debt, deeply in his debt, eh? And yet”—turning to Nag Cha Lee—“twenty-five years ago I used to envy these two—oh, yes! For they were already well-to-do, while I was poor. I envied them. I envied all Pell Street. But most did I envy Gin Ma-Fu——”
“The miser?” interrupted Nag Sen Yat.
“Yes. He was a worse miser even than you. ”

“ Come; confess, little brother.”
“Yes.”
“It is natural. During youth, envy and desire are like roses on a bush, to be plucked regardless of thorns. Youth is so careless. I like it. I admire its strength, its courage, its arrogant ruthlessness. I, too, once—” He interrupted himself. A slow flame eddied up in his eyes. His hand stabbed dramatically out of the poppy vapors and pointed like a pistol at Yung Long’s chest. “You remember me?”
“I—oh——”
“I want the truth!”
“I do not remember you.”
“And”—Ta Chen turned to Nag Sen Yat—“do you?” ”

“ He laughed. So did Nag Sen Yat. So did Tsing Yu-ch’ing.
And then Nag Cha Lee blurted out suddenly that, speaking of fig trees, once his father—“who does not always lie”—had told him a legend “which”—addressing Ta Chen direct—“might be of interest to you, O wise and older brother!” ”

“ He smiled. “It is years since I have seen you. Do you still braid ribbons into your cue to lengthen it? Do women’s hearts still flutter when you pass through the mazes of Pell Street?”
And to Nag Sen Yat:
“You have not changed the least bit, O brother very wise and very old! Tell me”—the typical wealthy Chinese who could afford to cause a loss of face to poorer men—“do you still cheat your belly to swell your money-bags?”
While Nag Sen Yat stammered for a rejoinder, Ta Chen looked questioningly at the third, the youngest.
“And you are——”
“I am Nag Cha Lee.” ”

“ He married a white woman. He named his son ‘George Washington.’ He made me dress in a blue uniform with brass buttons—just like the bank-messengers of the foreign devils. And he paid me fifteen dollars a month. ”

“ Give gold to a dog—and all the world will call him ‘mandarin dog’.”
AND many weeks later, when Ta Chen had returned to China, while his three agents were coining a rich harvest through the orders which he had left behind, Tsing Yu-ch’ing, the editor, who was Harvard-bred and a good Baptist, discussed the happening with Ling Yang, the waiter, who had listened through the keyhole. ”

“ Ruthlessness Sometimes Goes Unpunished, and the Ruthless Enjoy the Fruits of Their Misdoings, in Spite of the Demands of Popular Sentiment to the Contrary
By Achmed Abdullah
FOR years the three Pell Street merchants had traded with Ta Chen, the Peking millionaire, by correspondence, acting as his American brokers and gaining large sums in commissions punctually paid. Ta Chen, whose name was a household word wherever the yellow man did business at the expense and ignominy of the white man’s beard, had casually mentioned former visits to America—to New York—in some of his letters. ”