"A yeller haythen!" answered O'Eeilly. "Look at the craythur! Ain't
he a beauty jist wid his long pigtail hangin' down his back like a
monkey's tail?"
"Where did you find him?"
"He was huntin' for gold, the haythen, jist for all the world as if
he was as white as you or I."
Mr. Patrick O'Reilly appeared to hold the opinion that gold-hunting
should be confined to the Caucasian race. He looked upon a Chinaman
as rather a superior order of monkey, suitable for exhibition in a
cage, but not to be regarded as possessing the ordinary rights of an
adopted American resident. If he could have looked forward
twenty-five years, and foreseen the extent to which these barbarians
would throng the avenues of employment, he would, no doubt, have
been equally amazed and disgusted. Indeed, the capture of Ki Sing
was made through his influence, as Taylor, a man from Ohio, was
disposed to let him alone.
Soon a crowd gathered around the terrified Chinaman and his captors,
and he was plied with questions, some of a jocular character, by the
miners, who were glad of anything that relieved the monotony of
their ordinary life.
"What's your name?" asked one.
The Chinaman gazed at the questioner vacantly.
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