"But Señor," Lozario felt that he never would become accustomed to the ways of these Americans, and of this American in particular, "there are the rules."
"Rules! What rules?" Adair stormed further, then he caught Alice's eye and capitulated, "Well, what are we to do?"
"It's simply this," Mr. Nogales was more than grateful for Alice's presence which gave him at last an opportunity to speak, "there has been a good deal of smuggling across the borders in the past few months, and your American government has made new rules about the issuing of duplicates when passes are lost."
"Smuggling?" Walker Jamieson now spoke up for the first time since the party entered the office. "Smuggling what?"
"Well, the American gentleman knows that immigration laws prohibit the free passage of certain nationalities into the United States."
Walker nodded. His work in San Francisco had brought this fact most forcibly to his mind again and again, for there he had worked often among the Chinese and the Japanese and numbered among them many close friends. These people admired him and respected him greatly. They thought that because he was a newspaper man, he could do anything in the world for them that he wanted to do.
As a consequence, they were constantly coming to him with tales of wives or mothers or children that they wanted to see, but could not get into the United States because of the immigration laws.
"And the señor knows that these people somehow or other manage to get across the border in spite of these laws?" Mr. Nogales continued. He liked this young man.
"Yes." Walker knew that too. Often he had been amazed while covering his beat in Chinatown to meet the very mothers, wives, or children he had been asked to "get here for me, please, Mr. Jamieson" a few days after being asked.
However, as he threaded through the dark streets of the famous San Francisco Chinatown this surprise always wore off. The ways of the people he was among were so silent and mysterious, even to him working among them and calling them "friends", that he had grown to take such sudden appearances for granted.
"Well, just lately," Mr. Nogales went on, "there have been even more than the usual number of persons smuggled across. Your government and mine has been working hard on the problem of putting an end to this. One means of stopping it has been to check most thoroughly the issuance of all duplicate visitor's passes."
