Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/254

"Aye, a tap spouting filthy water." This was from Nag Sen Yat, the opium merchant.

"A tap which, presently, I shall stop with my fist," said Nag Hop Fat, the soothsayer, winding up the pleasant round of Oriental metaphor.

Thus was displayed, then, the serene, if negative, sympathy of the Pell Street confraternity, further demonstrated by its denizens leaving Li Ping-Yeng hereafter severely alone and by replying to all questions and remarks of outsiders with the usual formula of the Mongol when he does not wish to commit himself: "No savvy!"

"I feel so terribly sorry for him,"—this from Miss Edith Rutter,—"Is there really nothing I can do to—"

"No savvy."

"Looka here,"—from Bill Devoy,—"you tell that brother-Chink o' yourn, that there Li Ping-Yeng, to stop hittin' the black smoke, or I'll pinch him on spec, see?"

"No savvy."

"Listen!"—from the old Spanish woman who kept the second-hand store around the corner, on the Bowery,—"What do you think he's going to do with all the truck he bought for his wife? I'd like to buy the lot. Now, if you want to earn a commission—"

"No savvy."

"Is he goin' t' try holy matrimony again, or near-matrimony?"—from Mr. Brian Neill, the saloon-keeper, who occasionally added to his income by unsavory deals between the yellow and the white,—"For, if he wants another goil, there's a peacherino of a red-headed good-looker that blows into my back parlor once in a while and that don't mind Chinks as long's they got the kale—"