It was hard to make him understand, for he was a Filipino who insisted on speaking English, although I had a working knowledge of Spanish.  He first mistook me for a stevedore, then for the manager, and next for the Hong-Kong-Shanghai Bank.  I stormed at him, irritated that I should have to shout my business for the benefit of the loafers in the hotel office.

“Correspondent!” I yelled in answer to his questions.  “Newspaper correspondent working on the war.  I want to go to Hong-Kong in the Kut Sang!”

“I am very sorry,” he said, without explaining his sorrow.

“May I go in the Kut Sang?” I insisted, and he told me I could, and after he had talked in a low tone with somebody in his office, said that I couldn’t, which was exasperating.  I decided to go to the steamship office and plead with the officials.  Hanging up the receiver, I signalled to the boy to call a carriage.

“You want to go in the Kut Sang, my dear sir?” came a purring voice at my shoulder.  I looked up, and the Rev. Luther Meeker smiled at me.

I growled something at him to the effect that I wondered if I was ever to lose sight of him.  He bowed again and grinned.

“Sorry that you object to me,” he murmured, with lifted eyebrows.  “But we’ll let all that pass.  I might inform you that it is impossible to go in the steamer Kut Sang.  You will pardon me, I am sure, but I heard what you said at the telephone, and I am willing to annoy you to save you time and trouble.  I repeat, there is absolutely no possibility of your getting passage in the Kut Sang.”

“How do you know?” I asked, still curt with him, but feeling a trifle ashamed of myself for insulting him.

“Because they have just refused me, my dear sir—­allow me—­the Rev. Luther Meeker of the London Evangelical Society,” and he gave me a card which had seen considerable service.

“Trenholm is my name.  Sorry I haven’t a card.  Equally sorry, Mr. Meeker, that you have been refused passage in the Kut Sang.  Excuse me, but I am in a hurry.”

“It won’t avail you anything to visit the office,” he said, with sad mien and a sneer on his lips.

“And why not?”

“If they wouldn’t let me go, a man of the cloth, with credentials from the Bishop of Salisbury, your case is hopeless.”

“Thanks for the compliment,” I shot at him, and left him staring after me with puzzled surprise on his wrinkled countenance.  He stepped to the door and saw me enter a quilez, and there was a gleam of anger in his crafty old eyes.  The sunlight made him blink, for he was not wearing goggles, and as I rolled toward the Parian Gate, I looked back and saw him standing in the door and shading his eyes with his hand to look after me.

Taking possession of a very surprised steamship-agent, I informed him that I was going to Hong-Kong in the Kut Sang, and I was ready to argue with him until the vessel sailed.  A refusal was out of the question—­he didn’t have time to refuse.  I spread all sorts of papers on the counter and threatened to bring all the officers of the Hong-Kong-Shanghai Bank up there to argue for me.