"I see." The Labor Problem and the Chinese Question were the great
topics of interest in all grades of California society just then. My
mission in life was to keep the children of these marching and
banner-holding laborers from going to destruction.

"And you haven't any father, poor little man?"

"Yer bet yer life I don't want no more father in mine. He knocked me
down them stairs, and then he went off in a ship, and I don't go a cent
on fathers! Say, is this a 'zamination?"

I was a good deal amused and should have felt a little rebuked, had I
asked a single question from idle curiosity. "Yes, it's a sort of one,
Patsy,--all the kind we have."

"And do I hev to bring any red tape?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why, Jim said he bet 't would take an orful lot o' red tape t' git me
in."

Here he withdrew with infinite trouble from his ragged pocket an orange,
or at least the remains of one, which seemed to have been fiercely dealt
with by circumstances.

"Here's an orange I brung yer! It's been skwuz some, but there's more in
it."