“It’s their New Year festival,” Adrian explained.  “Come, we’ll visit some of the shops; they’ll give us tea and cakes, for that’s their custom.”

“How interesting!” remarked Inez.  She shook hands cordially with a grave, handsomely gowned Chinese merchant, whose emporium they now entered.  To her astonishment he greeted her in perfect English.  “A graduate of Harvard College,” Broderick whispered in her ear.

Wong Lee brought forward a tray on which was an assortment of strange sweetmeats in little porcelain dishes; he poured from a large tea-pot a tiny bowl of tea for each of his visitors.  While they drank and nibbled at the candy he pressed his hands together, moved them up and down and bowed low as a visitor entered; the latter soon departed, apparently abashed by the Americans.

“He would not mingle with the ‘foreign devils,’” Broderick smiled.  “That was Chang Foo, who runs the Hall of Everlasting Fortune, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, the gambling house,” Wong Lee answered.  “A bad man,” his voice sank to a whisper.  “Chief of the Hip Lee tong, for the protection of the trade in slave women.  He came, no doubt, to threaten me because I am harboring a Christian convert.  See,” he opened a drawer and took therefrom a rectangle of red paper.  “Last night this was found on my door.  It reads something like this: 

“Withdraw your shelter from the renegade Po Lun, who renounces the gods of his fathers.  Send him forth to meet his fate—­lest the blade of an avenger cleave your meddling skull.”

“Po was a member of the Hip Yees when he was converted; they stole a Chinese maiden—­his beloved and Po Sun hoped to rescue her.  That is why he joined that band of rascals.”

“And did he succeed?” asked Alice.

“No,” Wong Lee sighed.  “They spirited her away—­out of the city.  She is doubtless in some slave house at Vancouver or Seattle.  Poor Po!  He is heartbroken.”

“And what of yourself; are you not in danger?” Broderick questioned.

Wong smiled wanly.  “Until the New Year season ends I am safe at any rate.”

CHAPTER LIII

ENTER PO LUN

Broderick returned to Washington; he wrote seldom, but the newspapers printed, now and then, extracts from his speeches.  The Democrats were once more a dominating power and their organs naturally attacked the California Senator who defied both President and party; they asserted that Broderick was an ignorant boor, whose speeches were written for him by a journalist named Wilkes.  But they did not explain how Broderick more than held his own in extemporaneous debate with the nation’s seasoned orators.  Many of these would have taken advantage of his inexperience, for he was the second youngest Senator in Congress.  But he revealed a natural and disconcerting skill at verbal riposte which made him respected, if not feared by his opponents.  One day, being harried by administration Senators, he struck back with a savagery which, for the moment, silenced them.