This here chink seems to of been a carefree child up to the time the civilized world went crazy with a version for him.  He was a good cook and had a good job at a swell country club down the peninsula from San Francisco.  The hours was easy and he was close enough to the city to get in once or twice a week and mingle with his kind.  He could pass an evening with the older set, playing fan-tan and electing a new president of the Chinee race, or go to the Chinee theatre and set in a box and chew sugar cane; or he could have a nice time at the clubrooms of the Young China Progressive Association, playing poker for money.  Once in a while he’d mix in a tong war, he being well thought of as a hatchet man—­only they don’t use hatchets, but automatics; in fact, all Nature seemed to smile on him.

Well, right near this country club one of his six hundred thousand cousins worked as gardener for a man, and this man kept many beautiful chickens—­so Lew Wee says.  And he says a strange and wicked night animal crept into the home of these beautiful birds and slew about a dozen of ’em by biting ’em under their wings.  The man told his cousin that the wicked night animal must be a skunk and that his cousin should catch him in a trap.  So the cousin told Lew Wee that the wicked night animal was a skunk and that he was going to catch him in a trap.  Lew Wee thought it was interesting.

He went up to the city and in the course of a pleasant evening at fan-tan he told about the slain chickens that were so beautiful, and how the night animal that done it would be caught in a trap.  A great friend of Lew Wee’s was present, a wonderful doctor.  Lew Wee still says he is the most wonderful doctor in the world, knowing things about medicines that the white doctors can’t ever find out, these being things that the Chinee doctors found out over fifteen thousand years ago, and therefore true.  The doctor’s name was Doctor Hong Foy, and he was a rich doctor.  And he says to Lew Wee that he needs a skunk for medicine, and if any one will bring him a live skunk in good condition he will pay twenty-five dollars in American money for same.

Lew Wee says he won’t be needing that skunk much longer—­or words to that effect—­because he will get this one from the trap.  Doctor Hong Foy is much pleased and says the twenty-five American dollars is eager to become Lew Wee’s for this animal, alive and in good condition.

Lew Wee goes back, and the next day his cousin says he set a trap and the night skunk entered it, but he was strong like a lion and had busted out and bit some more chickens under the wing, and then went away from there.  He showed Lew Wee the trap and Lew Wee seen it wasn’t the right kind, but he knows how to make the right kind and will do so if the skunk can become entirely his property when caught.