This time Ah-Fo looked genuinely bewildered, but he gazed at Dennis as if he would have given anything to understand him.

“Uppee sleevee—­you know?” said Dennis, illustrating his meaning by signs. ("Chinese is a mighty easy language, Willie, I find, when you’re used to it.”)

A grin of intelligence spread from ear to ear on Ah-Fo’s countenance.

“Eyah!” said he, and with one jerk he produced our three letters, fan-fashion, in his right hand, and then they vanished as quickly, and he clapped his empty palms and cried, “Ha, ha!  Ha, ha!”

“It’s clever, there’s no denying,” said Alister, “but it’s an uncanny kind of cleverness.”

Something uncannier was to come.  Ah-Fo had stood irresolute for a minute or two, then he appeared to make up his mind, and coming close under the balcony he smiled at Dennis and said, “You lookee here.”  Then feeling rapidly in the inner part of his dress he brought out a common needle, which he held up to us, then pricked his finger to show that it was sharp, and held it up again, crying, “You see?”

“I see,” said Dennis.  “Needle.  Allee same as pin, barring that a pin’s got a head with no eye in it, and a needle’s got an eye with no head to it.”

“You no talkee, you lookee,” pleaded Ah-Fo.

“One for you, Dennis,” laughed the engineer.  We looked, and Ah-Fo put the needle into his mouth and swallowed it.  He gave himself a pat or two and made some grimaces to show that it felt rather prickly going down, and then he produced a second needle, and tested and then swallowed that.  In this way he seemed to swallow twelve needles, nor, with the closest watching, could we detect that they went anywhere but into his mouth.

“Will he make it a baker’s dozen, I wonder?” gasped Dennis.

But this time Ah-Fo produced a small ball of thread, and it followed the needles, after which he doubled himself up in uneasy contortions, which sent us into fits of laughter.  Then he put his fingers into his mouth—­we watched closely—­and slowly, yard after yard, he drew forth the unwound thread, and all the twelve needles were upon it.  And whilst we were clapping and cheering him, both needles and thread disappeared as before.

Ah-Fo was evidently pleased by our approval, and by the shower of coins with which our host rewarded his performance, but when he had disposed of them in his own mysterious fashion, some source of discontent seemed yet to remain.  He looked sadly at Dennis and said, “Ah-Fo like to do so, allee same as you.”  And then began gravely to shuffle his feet about, in vain efforts, as became evident, to dance an Irish jig.  We tried to stifle our laughter, but he was mournfully conscious of his own failure, and, when Dennis whistled the tune, seemed to abandon the task in despair, and console himself by an effort to recall the original performance.  After standing for a few seconds with his eyes shut and his head thrown back, so that his pig-tail nearly touched the ground, the scene appeared to return to his memory.  “Eyah!” he chuckled, and turned to go, laughing as he went.