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.

In the _quilez_ I laughed at myself for allowing a prying old man like
Meeker to upset my temper, and, as I rode back to the hotel, put the both
of them out of my mind; but promised myself that I would take my revenge
on the old pest in so