“As I have told you before,” Ned replied, “I don’t know the first thing about the work cut out for us by the United States Secret Service people.  There was some talk about following a brace of conspirators to Peking, the conspirators who tried to discredit the United States in the matter of the gold shipment but that was only incidental, and I was ordered to come here and await instructions.  So I’m going to wait—­ until the moon drops out of the sky, if necessary.”

“Oh, we’ll stick around!” Frank put in.  “Don’t think, for a minute, that any of us thought of quitting the game.  Still, I’d just like to know how much longer we have to remain here, and just what we are to do when we get to Peking, if we ever do.”

“Of course we’ll stick!” Jimmie exclaimed.  “All I’m kickin’ on is the delay.  We might have remained on board the submarine, where we had cozy quarters an’ somethin’ to eat besides this Chink stuff.”

“Whenever you want to bump Jimmie good and plenty,” laughed Jack, “all you need to do is to tamper with his rations.  What’s the matter with this rice, kid, and this meat pie?” he added, as the man who had served their food since their occupancy of the old house approached with a large, covered basket on his arm.

Jimmie wrinkled his freckled nose again and laid a hand on his stomach, as if in sympathy with that organ for the unutterable Chinese concoctions it had been called upon to assimilate of late.

“Rat pie!” he said, in a tone of disgust.

“I’ll bet a dollar to a rap on the nose that it’s rat pie!  I can hear the rats squeal nights when I’m tryin’ to sleep an’ can’t.”

“Say, Chink,” Jack said, seizing the Chinaman by the shoulder and facing him about so that a good look into his slanty eyes might be had, “what do you know about this chuck?”

“No chuck!  Pie!”

“Of course it’s pie!” answered Jack.  “It would be pie if it was made of old shoes, if it had a crust on.  What I want to know is, where did you catch him, and who pays you to bring it to us, and who pays him to pay you to feed it to us?  Where does he live, and is he black, white, or red?  Come on, old top.  You know a lot if you could only think of it.”

The Chinaman, an evil-looking old fellow with a long cicatrice across his left cheekbone, shook his head and regarded his questioner craftily.

“No spik English!” he said.

“You spoke it then,” Jack retorted.  “I’ll bet a pan of pickles that you know what we were saying when you came in here.”

“Let him alone,” Frank advised.  “That head of his is solid bone.  He would think his foot hurt if he had the toothache.”

“What a filthy, yellow, toothless, wicked old devil it is!” Jack went on.  “Some day when he comes here with that basket of rats I’m going to cut his pigtail off close behind his ears.”

“I think he’s the foulest old geezer I’ve ever met,” Frank went on.  “If I had a dog with a mug like that I’d hire him out to the man who manufactures nightmares.”