The eggs were all right, but nobody in this part of the world had the least conception of what the coffee bean was for.  Always as black and bitter as gall.  Coffee a la Turque wasn’t so bad; but a guy couldn’t soak his breakfast toast in it.

Two women entered and sat down at the adjoining table.  After a while one began to talk.

“The manager says there is still some doubt.  The change will come to-day.  Ah Cum had no business taking him into the city last night.  The young man did not know what he was doing or where he was.”

O’Higgins extracted a cigar from a pocket and inspected it.  Henry Clay, thirteen cents in Hong-Kong and two-bits in that dear old New York.  He would never be able to figure out that:  all these miles from Cuba, and you could get a perfecto for thirteen cents.  He heard the woman talking again.

“I feel guilty, going away and leaving that ignorant child; but our days have been so planned that we dare not change the schedule.  Didn’t understand me when I said she would be compromised!  He won’t be able to leave his bed under four weeks; and she said she hadn’t much money.  If she had once known him, if he were some former neighbour, it would be comprehensible.  But an individual she never laid eyes on day before yesterday!  And the minute he gets up, he’ll head for the public bar.  There’s something queer about that young man; but we’ll never be able to find out what it is.  I don’t believe his name is Taber.”

O’Higgins tore free the scarlet band of his perfecto, the end of which he bit off with strong white teeth, and smiled.  You certainly had to hand it to these Chinks.  Picked up the photograph, looked at it, handed it back, and never batted an eye!  The act was as clear as daylight, but the motive was as profoundly mysterious as the race itself.  He hadn’t patrolled old Pell Street as a plain clothes man without getting a glimmer of the ancient truth that East is East and West is West.  He would have some sport with Mr. Ah Cum before the day was over, slyly baiting him.  But what had young Spurlock done for Ah Cum in the space of twenty-four hours that had engaged Ah Cum’s loyalty, not only engaged it but put it on guard?  For O’Higgins, receiving light from the next table, had no doubt regarding the identity of the subject of this old maid’s observations.

A queer game this:  he could not move directly as in an ordinary case of man-hunt.  He had certain orders from which on no account was he to deviate.  But this made the chase all the more exciting.  What was the matter with Spurlock that was to keep him in bed three or four weeks?  He would dig that out of the hotel manager.  Anyhow, there was some pleasurable satisfaction in knowing where the quarry would be for the next three weeks.

There was now a girl in the picture, so it seemed.  Well, this was the side of the world where things like that happened.  The boy would naturally attract the women, if the women were at all romantic.  Good looks, with a melancholy cast, always drew sentimental females.  Probably some woman on the loose; they were as thick as flies over here—­dizzy blondes.  That is, if Spurlock had been throwing money about, which was more than likely.