ur little Yokohama police know much of
ju-jitsu, they found that they had still something to learn of the
short jab to the jaw and the quick getaway."

Indeed, throughout, it was a most successful dinner.

And just to show how small this world is, and that "God moves in a
mysterious way, His wonders to perform," at three o'clock that
morning, when the dinner-party in rickshaws were rolling down the
Bund, singing "We're Little White Mice Who Have Gone Astray," their
voices carried across the Pacific, across the Cordilleras and the
Caribbean Sea; and an old man in his cell, tossing and shivering with
fever, smiled and sank to sleep; for in his dreams he had heard the
scampering feet of the White Mice, and he had seen the gates of his
prison-cell roll open.

* * * * *

The Forrester Construction Company did not get the contract to build
the three light-houses. The Japanese preferred a light-house made by
an English firm. They said it was cheaper. It _was_ cheaper, because
they bought the working plans from a draughtsman the English firm had
discharged for drunkenness, and, by causing the revolving light to
wink once instead of twice, dodged their own patent laws.

Mr. Forrester agreed with the English firm that the Japanese were "a
wonderful little people," and then looked about for some one
individual he could blame. Finding no one else, he blamed Roddy. The
interview took place on the twenty-seventh story of the Forrester
Building, in a room that overlooked the Brooklyn Bridge.

"You didn't fall down on the job," the fond parent was carefully
explaining, "because you never were _on_ the job. You didn't even
_start_. It was thoughtful of you to bring back kimonos to mother and
the girls. But the one you brought me does not entirely compensate me
for the ninety thousand dollars you didn't bring back. I would _like_
my friends to see me in a kimono with silk storks and purple wistarias
down the front, but I feel I cannot afford to pay ninety thousand
dollars for a bathrobe.

"Nor do I find," continued the irate parent coldly, "that the honor
you did the company by disguising yourself as a stoker and helping the
base-ball team of the _Louisiana_ to win the pennant of the Asiatic
Squadron, altogether reconciles us to the loss of a government
contract. I have paid a good deal to have you taught mechanical
engineering, and I should like to know how soon you expect to give me
the interest