that Sweetclover was happy, for they had not only
escaped being ripped apart, but were all together, safe and sound.

And Dorothy and her parents went to their hotel in the city, and
Dorothy played with her new dolls till her mother came to her and
said:

"Dorothy, dear, we must pack our things for we are going to China this
afternoon."

But a great misfortune happened, for when Dorothy's parents arrived in
China they were in a great hurry to leave the dock, where the boat
landed, and Dorothy, who had fallen asleep, forgot her dolls, and left
them on a bench in the waiting room, and before Kernel Cob or Jackie
Tar or the Villain or Sweetclover could catch up to her, she had been
lifted into her mother's arms and had disappeared in the crowd.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XIV

"Well," said Jackie Tar, "Here we are in China." "I don't see any cups
and saucers," said Kernel Cob, looking about the streets. "All I can
see is a lot of women with hair hanging down their backs."

"Those are men--Chinamen," explained Jackie Tar, for sailors travel
all about and know pretty nearly everything about the people of the
world.

"Well, if they are men," said Kernel Cob, "they ought to have their
hair cut, and look like men. And if Jackie and Peggs' motheranfather
look like these Chinamen, I don't want to find them at all, for I
think a child is better off _without_ parents than having two
mothers."

"I wish we had never come here at all," said Sweetclover.

"Never mind," said the Villain, "we will find a way to get out of
here."

"Leave it to me," said Jackie Tar. "I've been about this old world
enough to know how to manage things."

But much as he had been about, he didn't count on the things that
happen when you least expect them, for just at that moment, and
without any warning, they were picked up by a little Chinese boy who
carried them home.

"This must be the thirteenth of the month," said Jackie Tar, for you
know that people think that the number thirteen brings bad luck.

But it wasn't the thirteenth as you will presently see, for it was a
very lucky day indeed for our little friends.

And they were played with by the little Chinese boy, and, when it came
time to go to bed, he took the little dolls with him and for once they
were fed a very enjoyable supper of rice and milk, a food which Jackie
Tar and the Villain liked, but Kernel Cob said it needed raisins and
more sugar, so it might be a rice puddin