Then this person and another searched us all over. They found a
little package of opium sewed into the artificial part of Hong-Wo's
queue, and they took that, and also they made him prisoner and handed him
over to an officer, who marched him away. They took his luggage, too,
because of his crime, and as our luggage was so mixed together that they
could not tell mine from his, they took it all. When I offered to help
divide it, they kicked me and desired me to look out.
Having now no baggage and no companion, I told my employer that if he was
willing, I would walk about a little and see the city and the people
until he needed me. I did not like to seem disappointed with my
reception in the good land of refuge for the oppressed, and so I looked
and spoke as cheerily as I could. But he said, wait a minute--I must be
vaccinated to prevent my taking the small-pox. I smiled and said I had
already had the small-pox, as he could see by the marks, and so I need
not wait to be "vaccinated," as he called it. But he said it was the
law, and I must be vaccinated anyhow. The doctor would never let me
pass, for the law obliged him to vaccinate all Chinamen and charge them
ten dollars apiece for it, and I might be sure that no doctor who would
be the servant of that law would let a fee slip through his fingers to
accommodate any absurd fool who had seen fit to have the disease in some
other country.
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