ime 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.

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_Kut Sang_, although we have withdrawn her from the passenger-trade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