“You pay now!  You pay now!  Twenty-five sen!” yelled the proprietor, hoarse with rage.

Alf was red in the face, too, from mortification; but he resolutely set out on another exploration.  He had given up the purse, pinning his last hope on stray coins.  In the little change-pocket of his coat he found a ten-sen piece and five-copper sen; and remembering having recently missed a ten-sen piece, he cut the seam of the pocket and resurrected the coin from the depths of the lining.  Twenty-five sen he held in his hand, the sum required to pay for the supper he had eaten.  He turned them over to the proprietor, who counted them, grew suddenly calm, and bowed obsequiously—­in fact, the whole crowd bowed obsequiously and melted away.

Alf Davis was a young sailor, just turned sixteen, on board the Annie Mine, an American sailing-schooner, which had run into Yokohama to ship its season’s catch of skins to London.  And in this, his second trip ashore, he was beginning to snatch his first puzzling glimpses of the Oriental mind.  He laughed when the bowing and kotowing was over, and turned on his heel to confront another problem.  How was he to get aboard ship?  It was eleven o’clock at night, and there would be no ship’s boats ashore, while the outlook for hiring a native boatman, with nothing but empty pockets to draw upon, was not particularly inviting.

Keeping a sharp lookout for shipmates, he went down to the pier.  At Yokohama there are no long lines of wharves.  The shipping lies out at anchor, enabling a few hundred of the short-legged people to make a livelihood by carrying passengers to and from the shore.

A dozen sampan men and boys hailed Alf and offered their services.  He selected the most favorable-looking one, an old and beneficent-appearing man with a withered leg.  Alf stepped into his sampan and sat down.  It was quite dark and he could not see what the old fellow was doing, though he evidently was doing nothing about shoving off and getting under way.  At last he limped over and peered into Alf’s face.

“Ten sen,” he said.

“Yes, I know, ten sen,” Alf answered carelessly.  “But hurry up.  American schooner.”

“Ten sen.  You pay now,” the old fellow insisted.

Alf felt himself grow hot all over at the hateful words “pay now.”  “You take me to American schooner; then I pay,” he said.

But the man stood up patiently before him, held out his hand, and said, “Ten sen.  You pay now.”

Alf tried to explain.  He had no money.  He had lost his purse.  But he would pay.  As soon as he got aboard the American schooner, then he would pay.  No; he would not even go aboard the American schooner.  He would call to his shipmates, and they would give the sampan man the ten sen first.  After that he would go aboard.  So it was all right, of course.

To all of which the beneficent-appearing old man replied:  “You pay now.  Ten sen.”  And, to make matters worse, the other sampan men squatted on the pier steps, listening.