The talk about the bank seemed to help me wonderfully, for he had a whispered conversation with a gray-bearded old gentleman, who looked me over with a shrewd eye, and nodded his assent to my buying a ticket.

“It won’t be necessary for you to sign ship’s articles,” said the agent, turning affable all of a sudden.  “We have a passenger-license for the Kut Sang, although we have withdrawn her from the passenger-trade except in cases of emergency or delay of the regular ships.  But she hasn’t been in the passenger-trade for nearly a year and we won’t undertake to guarantee the table or service.

“You won’t find her equal to a liner, and the ticket is sold with the understanding that she is a cargo-boat, and if you are willing to take pot-luck with Captain Riggs, that is your affair.  However, it is understood that you are not to make unreasonable complaints or demands of the master.”

My answer to this was to dump a handful of gold coins on the counter before he could change his mind.  I told him I was willing to go to Hong Kong in a coal-barge.

“You will find it lonesome on the passage,” he said.

“I’ll manage all right,” I replied, not quite rid of my asperity over their lack of decision about taking a passenger.

“We have already sold one ticket,” continued the clerk, as he put down figures on a pad.  He glanced at me with a quizzical expression, and then smiled.

“One passenger will help,” I commented, for something better to say.

“If he doesn’t talk an arm off you before you reach Hong-Kong, I’ll give you the ticket for sixpence.  He’s a missionary,” he grinned.

“The Rev. Luther Meeker!” I cried in horror.

“The Rev. Luther Meeker!” he repeated, and gave me my change with a chuckle.

Naturally, I was astonished to discover that Meeker was to be a passenger with me in the Kut Sang, but I was out in the street again before it dawned upon me that the situation was more than a mere coincidence.  The missionary had lied to me when he said he had been refused passage, he had misled me when he said it was impossible to buy a ticket in the Kut Sang, and I could make nothing of it all but that he did not want me to know he was sailing in the vessel, and that he did not want me to go in her.

The idea that he would interfere with my plans and delay me for a week simply because he objected to my presence in the same steamer with him filled me with wrath.  I so lost my temper for a minute that I was bent on going back to the hotel and knocking him down, missionary or no missionary; but, instead, came to the conclusion that the joke was on him, and I would have plenty of opportunities to retaliate upon him between Manila and Hong-Kong.

Before I got into my quilez my ire was roused again at the sight of the red-headed beggar lounging in a doorway across the street, obviously watching me.  It was plain enough that Meeker had sent him to spy upon me and learn if I went to the steamship office.  The little beggar saw me looking at him and dodged into a doorway, but fled when he saw me start after him.