Page, outwardly calm, answered steadily at first, but his knotted fingers and swelling veins showed the strain.  Once his lips trembled.  I had never seen a man’s lips tremble before.  It’s no wonder mothers can die for sons.

Inquiries as to quantity and quality of ancestors, place of birth, age, calling now and formerly came with the precision of a marksman hunting the center of the target.  “How long have you been in this country?”

“About a year.”

“From where did you come to Japan?”

Page hesitated, then stammered:  “Don’t remember.”

The high-lifted brows of the official were eloquent, his voice increasingly sarcastic:  “So!  Your memory makes absence.  Repeat your name once again.”

“Page Hanaford.”

“Hanaford?  So!  Now your other name?”

“I have no other name.”

“Your other name!” was the sharp demand.

“My name is Page Hanaford, I tell you.”  He spoke with quick anger as he arose from the chair.

“Your other name!” sternly reiterated his inquisitor.

A wave of confusion seemed to cover the boy.  Desperate and at bay, he rather feebly steadied himself for a last defense.  “What do you mean?  Can’t you hear me?  I tell you for the last time my name is—­”

“Ford Page Hamilton,” supplied the voice of Kobu, cool, suave and sure as he came from behind the curtain.  “I arrest you as fugitive.  See what paper says?  You take moneys from bank.”  He exposed a circular printed in large type.  It read: 

“$5,000 reward for information of one Ford Page Hamilton, dead or alive.  Last seen in Singapore, summer of 1912,” followed by a detailed description and signed by a Chicago banking firm.

“It’s a lie!” shouted Page as he read.

“No lie.  See?  Page Hanaford San, Ford Hamilton San all same.”  Kobu held close to the pitiful white face a photograph which undoubtedly could have been Page Hanaford in happier days.

The boy looked, then laid his shaking arm across his eyes.  With a moan as if his soul had yielded to despair he hoarsely whispered:  “Oh, God!  A thief!  It’s over!”

He sank to the floor.

XVIII

A VISITOR FROM AMERICA

In old Nippon the flower of kindness reaches full perfection when friend or foe suffers defeat.  Page Hanaford might be a long-hunted prize in the police world, but to the group around him as he lay on the floor, his head upon my lap, he was a stranger far from home and very ill.  Justice could wait while mercy served.  Pity urged willing messengers to bring restoratives, to summon doctors who pronounced the sick man in the clutches of fever.  Hospitals in Hijiyama are built for the emergencies of war, and solicitude for Page’s comfort was uppermost when, after a short consultation among the officials, permission was granted to remove him to my house with an officer in charge.