ight-seeing, I found myself in a square near the San Miguel Bridge.

There was a crowd gathered before a building, which I remember on account
of the picture of a frigate painted upon the stucco wall and the great
red letters spelling out:

THE FLAGSHIP BAR

There had evidently been a fight; and coolies and natives, and Europeans
in white, clustered at the door. I joined the knot of people and pressed
forward to see what was holding their attention, and saw the body of a
big, foreign-looking man, half inside the door and half on the pavement,
with his head outside.

His mouth was open, and from his upper lips drooped long, black
moustaches, looking all the blacker for the ghastly pallor of his cheeks.
He had been stabbed in the back, and the spectators in the front of the
group edged away to avoid the growing pool of blood on the sidewalk.

"Does anybody know who he is?" demanded a khaki-clad policeman, taking
out a note-book.

"A sailor," said an American in a white apron, who leaned out of the
door. "Drank whiskey and vermouth and talked like a squarehead."

"Greek he was," said a man with the appearance of a mariner.

"Here's his cap in here," said the bartender, and he turned and picked up
a watch-cap, and held it so we could see letters wrought in it with gilt
cord, and I made out "Kut Sang," which excited my interest in the case.

"Boatswain he was in the _Kut Sang_, bound out to-day for Hong-Kong,"
said the mariner.

"Jolly long road to Hong-Kong for him now," said another.

"Who cut him?" demanded the policeman. "Didn't you see how this happened?
Are you all deaf and dumb? You, there in the apron! Who did this?"

"You can search me," said the bartender. "He had a couple of drinks and
was going out when somebody slipped a knife in him. I was at the other
end of the bar--never saw a thing until this one here lets out a yell and
goes down. Somebody cut and run through the door."

"I see him! I see him!" cried a boy in kilts who had a hoop, and we all
turned, expecting the murderer to be pointed out to us; but the boy meant
that he had seen the man running away and all that he knew was that he
had worn a "funny hat," and he could tell nothing else.

"A little chap it was," volunteered a cockney.

"What's that?" asked the policeman. "Speak up--nobody here going to bite
you, my man! Did you see him? What did he look like?"

"I didn't see him do no cuttin', if that's what you mean, officer. I
didn't s