CHAPTER IX

“WHO’S AFRAID OF A CHINAMAN?”

Next morning Johnny wandered over to the _Sentinel_ office. He wanted to thank the editor for the fine publicity he had given the game. More than this he always had enjoyed a half hour in the box-like office of C. K. Lovell, or “old C. K.” as the people of the city had come to call him.

C. K. was something of a character. More than six feet tall, a broad-shouldered, slouching figure of a man, with masses of gray hair and bushy eyebrows, slumped down in his office chair, he resembled a shaggy St. Bernard dog basking in the sun.

“H’llo Johnny!” he greeted. “Fine game yesterday. Sort of queer, though. Rather unusual about that pitcher! And did you notice that airplane? What did you make of that?”

“Haven’t got it made yet.” Johnny dropped into a chair. “Tough about that pitcher though. It must not happen again.

“But say!” he enthused. “Wasn’t that a grand crowd! Boys owe you a lot.”

“Oh, that’s nothing,” the editor laughed good-naturedly. “Boys deserved it. Fine lot of boys. Be a bigger crowd than ever next week. What about that electric umpire? Think it will work?”

“Sure will.”

“Call strikes and balls, and all that?”

“Sure will, C. K.”

“Dodge pop bottles too?” C. K. laughed.

“No. Pop bottles would be bad for his eyes. Got forty eyes, that umpire has.” Johnny laughed. “Guess the crowd will go easy on that, though.

“You see,” Johnny went on as the editor showed his interest by hitching up in his chair, “an electric eye is like a radio tube. When a beam of light is sent to it from across a space it stays just so until the light is shut off by some object, say a baseball. Then it sets up a howl. If you connect it with a phonograph attachment, you can make it call out ‘Foul ball!’”

“Interesting if true,” C.K. drawled. “Sure ought to draw a crowd.

“Say Johnny!” The editor leaned forward to speak in a tone little more than a whisper. “Heard anything about Federal agents being around town?”

“Federal agents!” Johnny stared. “No. What for?”

“I’ve heard they’re looking for a Chinaman, a little fellow—name’s Tao Sing, I believe.”

“Tao Sing!” Johnny started. A mental picture of Tao Sing in the small room at the back of the Chinese spice shop flashed into his mind.

“Thought I knew them all,” said C.K. “This must be a new one.”

“Why should Federal agents want a Chinaman? Who’s afraid of a Chinaman?” This last slipped from Johnny’s lips unbidden.

“Who’s afraid of a Chinaman!” C.K. sat up straight quite suddenly. “Plenty of people afraid of a Chinaman, Johnny. Plenty!

“A Chinaman looks dull and sleepy enough,” he went on. “So does a big old tom cat. But let a dog come around the corner and see what the cat does to him. A Chinaman’s like that. He’ll go up like a rocket most any time.

“I worked down near Frisco’s old Chinatown, Johnny, years ago,” he went on. “Got to be sort of an amateur guide. Went with the police when they raided Chinese gambling joints and opium dens. Say! I can hear the steel door bang yet when the first Chink gave the warning. Bang! Bang! Bang! And sometimes it wasn’t a door that banged either.” His voice dropped. “Johnny, things happened there I wouldn’t dare tell about—not even now. And that was a long time ago, a long time ago.” C.K. settled back in his chair.

“Well, I—” Johnny got to his feet a trifle unsteadily. “Guess I better get going.”

“Don’t hurry, Johnny.”

“Got to go.”

Johnny did hurry. He was afraid he might tell what he knew about Tao Sing. He was not ready to do that—not just yet.

“But boy, oh boy!” he whispered. “Would what I know about that little Chink make front page stuff! First column in every city!” He could see it now: “CHINAMAN INVENTS THOUGHT-RECORDING CAMERA. NO MAN’S THOUGHTS HIS OWN.”

He was sorely tempted to release the story at once. On sober thought, however, he decided he was not ready to do that—not yet!

“So they’re looking for Tao Sing, those Federal agents,” he thought. “Wonder why? Wonder if the think-o-graphs and the thought-camera have anything to do with that?” He recalled his visit to the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, of the pictures he had taken of Wung Lu’s thoughts and how he had delivered them to Tao Sing. The thought was disturbing. “Ought not to have been snooping round gathering up another fellow’s thoughts, then peddling them to someone else,” he grumbled. “And yet—” ah yes, and yet—if he had not done that he could not have had the thought-camera for his own use.

“I’ll use it a lot more,” he assured himself. “Find out all sorts of queer things for C.K. He’ll run them in his paper and make a scoop.”

But would he return to the Chinese Chamber of Commerce? Well, not right away. He recalled what C.K. had said of things that had happened in old Frisco’s Chinatown, and a chill ran up his spine.

“Fellow’d think—”

No matter what he’d think. Here was Goggles.

“Look here, Johnny!” Goggles exclaimed. “I heard you found out about that airplane that was over the ball field yesterday.”

“Didn’t find out much—just that a pilot from over at the flying field took two men up.”

“Who were they?”

“Wish I knew. The pilot said they were from Hillcrest.”

“If they were it should be easy to find them. Not many new people in Hillcrest. Only about half a dozen stop at the hotel. Rest live in houses. I’ll get ’em. Give me time.” Goggles’ big eyes gleamed behind his thick glasses. “I’m an amateur detective, Johnny.”

“Done a little of that myself,” Johnny said with a grin. “Not in a small city, though. Guess I’ll leave that to you.”

“I’ll find ’em, Johnny.” Goggles was away.

Johnny smiled as he watched him hurry down the street. Goggles sure was an interesting boy. He dug into everything just as a gopher digs into the earth. Chemistry, electricity, detective work, it was all the same to him.

“Little cities are surely interesting,” was Johnny’s mental comment. “In big cities everyone tries to be just like everyone else. People think alike, walk alike, dress the same, everything. In a little city everyone is different.”

Then he brought himself up with a jerk. There was the thought-camera. Somehow, since talking to C.K. about the Chinese, he found himself all but overcome with a desire to hide the thought-camera in some very dark and secret spot. In the end, after hurrying home, he buried it deep among the clothes in his trunk, locked the trunk, then hid the key.

“So they’re after Tao Sing!” he murmured low. “Wonder if they’ll find him. And if they do, I wonder—” he did not finish that last wonder.