He did not anticipate any harm to his Mongolian friend during the
night; but this was because he did not fully understand the feeling
of outraged dignity which rankled in the soul of O'Reilly.
Patrick O'Reilly was like his countrymen in being always ready for a
fight; but he was unlike them in harboring a sullen love of revenge.
In this respect he was more like an Indian.
He felt that Richard Dewey had got the better of him in the brief
contest, and the fact that he had been worsted in the presence of
his fellow miners humiliated him. If he could only carry his point,
and deprive the Chinaman of his queue after all, the disgrace would
be redeemed, and O'Reilly would be himself again.
"And why shouldn't I?" he said to himself. "The haythen will sleep
in Dewey's tent. Why can't I creep up, unbeknownst, in the middle of
the night, and cut off his pigtail, while he is aslape? Faith, I'd
like to see how he and his friend would look in the morning. I don't
belave a word of his not bein' allowed to go back to Chiny widout
it. That is an invintion of Dewey,"
The more O'Reilly dwelt upon this idea the more it pleased him. Once
the pigtail was cut off, the mischief could not be repaired, and he
would have a most suitable and satisfactory revenge.
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