The type of game was unimportant. If somebody took the fan-tan counters away or destroyed the pie-gow[p'ai-chiu] blocks, the sojourners would bet on the number of seed in an uncut orange. While merchants and professional gamblers grew steadily richer from the profits which these means of escape in Chinatown produced, the picture of the losing indentured emigrant appeared again and again. Having paid off his debts and saved for years to return to his familhy in China, on the eve of his departure the free man might drop into a gambling house, lose his savings in one night, and turn back, with great surface indifference, to begin a life of service again.