face was red, the earthly red of
porphyry, and cracked and scarred by the crumpling. Nearly obliterated
by the lacework of wrinkles and scratches was a scrawl, evidently
scarred into the glazed surface by a knife-point. The upper part was
unintelligible. On the lower surface he made out with difficulty the
single word, _Vandalia_. He carried it to the door, slid back the
shutter and let the dim, gray light filter upon it. The other words
were too mutilated to be read.

"Hi!"

He returned to Lo Ong's jacketed side. The bony finger was circling
excitedly about a smear of black in the lower corner of the rice paper.

"What's this?"

"Len Yang. _Len Yang_! Savvy?"

"O-ho! And who is Len Yang?"

Lo Ong shook his head in agitation. "Len Yang--city. Savvy?
Shanghai--Len Yang--fort' day."

"Fourteen days from Shanghai to Len Yang?"

"No. No! _No_! Fort'."

"Forty?"

"O-o-ey." The flattened nose bobbed up and down. "Keep away--ai?"

"Maskee," Peter replied, meaning, broadly speaking, none of your
business.

Lo Ong unbolted the door, to hint that the interview was concluded.
"You keep away--ai?" he repeated anxiously. Moore grinned in his
peculiarly disingenuous way, swung open the black door, and a long,
gray arm of the fog groped its way past Lo Ong's countenance.

CHAPTER III

The junior operator toyed with the heavy transmitting key while Peter
Moore, who knew the behavior of his apparatus as he would know the
caprices of an old friend, adjusted helix-plugs, started the
motor-generator, and satisfied the steel-eyed radio inspector that his
wave decrement was exactly what it ought to be.

Then the inspector grunted suspiciously and wanted to know if the
auxiliary batteries were properly charged. With a faint smile, Moore
hooked up the auxiliary apparatus, tapped the key, and a crinkly blue
spark snapped between the brass points above the fat rubber coil.

"I reckon she'll do," observed the inspector. "Aerial don't leak, does
it?"

"No," said Peter.

The government man took a final look at the glittering instruments, and
departed. Wherewith the junior operator swung half around in the
swivel-chair and exposed to Peter an expression of mild imploration.
Two gray lids over cavernous sockets lifted and lowered upon shining
black eyes, one of which seemed to lack focus. Peter recalled then
that the Chief had said something about a second operator having only
one human eye, the ot