Then they searched me. They found nothing, of course. They seemed very
angry and asked who I supposed would "go my bail or pay my fine." When
they explained these things to me, I said I had done nobody any harm, and
why should I need to have bail or pay a fine? Both of them kicked me and
warned me that I would find it to my advantage to try and be as civil as
convenient. I protested that I had not meant anything disrespectful.
Then one of them took me to one side and said:

"Now look here, Johnny, it's no use you playing softly wid us. We mane
business, ye know; and the sooner ye put us on the scent of a V, the
asier yell save yerself from a dale of trouble. Ye can't get out o' this
for anny less. Who's your frinds?"

I told him I had not a single friend in all the land of America, and that
I was far from home and help, and very poor. And I begged him to let me
go.

He gathered the slack of my blouse collar in his grip and jerked and
shoved and hauled at me across the dungeon, and then unlocking an iron
cell-gate thrust me in with a kick and said:

"Rot there, ye furrin spawn, till ye lairn that there's no room in
America for the likes of ye or your nation."

AH SONG HI.