e on, Barry, we
must hustle too. Gosh! See that?"

A mild-mannered, soft-eyed Javanese porter had set down a heavy suitcase
and was apparently trying to persuade its white owner to pay his small
fee for carrying it. The white man, keen-faced, overbearing,
immaculately dressed, cursed the porter in venomous Low Malay and picked
up the suitcase himself. As he turned to board the train, leaving the
fee unpaid, the porter trotted beside him with outstretched palm, asking
civilly enough for his wage. The white man swung around, kicked him
viciously, and sprang on the train, leaving his victim squirming in
agony on the platform.

"Here, I'm going after that duck!" gritted Barry, buttoning his jacket
and starting forward. "That's the sort of white man that makes me glad
I'm sun-tanned brown!"

"Not here--not now," warned Little, seizing the sailor's sleeve. "We've
got to hustle to keep our seats, son. Ain't that sort o' thing regular
with white men in a black man's land? It is with these lordly Dutchmen,
anyway."

"Regular? Huh! Not if I can stop it," snorted Barry. "Would you see a
dog kicked like that? Not much you wouldn't. I don't like that white
man."

"We'll sure agree not to like him, Barry, old scout; but for the love o'
Mother Dooley don't start something that'll tie our hands this early in
the game."

Little led his obstinate friend to his seat, and until their fellow
travelers melted away in the crowd at the Surabaya station he kept a
wary eye on him. Barry snorted like a pugilist stung hard on the nose
when the white corrector of insistent coolies marched from the station
as if he owned the town; and the ex-salesman was forced to use all his
diplomacy to restrain Barry from an outbreak.

"Have a heart, Cap, have a heart," he pleaded, when Barry barely escaped
collision with a speeding barouche while following with his eyes his
unknown enemy. "We're a pair o' tourists, remember. You'll get all the
scrapping you can handle when we get away from here. If you go after
every white fellow you see slugging a coolie, we'll have no time to
attend to our own business."

"You're boss of the job; I'm dumb," grunted Barry. "All the same, I'd
pass up Houten's proposition for the pleasure of pushing that chap's
jib three inches further inboard. Let's get something to drink. I'm on
fire."

Little led the way to a quiet hotel whose veranda commanded a wide view
of the harbor and the Island of Madura across the straits.