Leaving the bank, I turned toward the Escolta, which is the principal business street of Manila.  The shop windows attracted me, and I sauntered for half an hour or more.  I wanted a new field-glass, and as I stood on the pavement at a corner and looked in at a jeweller’s window I caught the image of Meeker in the glass, which was thrown in a shadow by an awning.

I turned without thinking Meeker could have any interest in what I might do, and saw him half a block away talking to the little red-headed beggar who had looked in at the bank door.  Meeker evidently caught me looking at him, for he whispered to the beggar, who hastened away, taking a furtive glance at me over his shoulder as he left.  I turned toward Meeker, and he swung away down the street as I approached him, with more nimbleness than I supposed was in his old bones.

“I suppose the pest will be at my heels for the next week,” I told myself, annoyed at the way the missionary crossed my path.  That was the fourth time I had seen him in an hour, and I dreaded to go to the hotel, sure I would meet him again—­for, of course, he could not have gone anywhere else but to the Oriente.

I thought it strange that he should be talking to the little beggar, although it never occurred to me that they were watching me; and, even if they were, I would have not concerned myself much about it.  As it was, I ascribed Meeker’s embarrassment when I last saw him to what had passed between us in the bus, and concluded that he was trying to avoid me, which I considered a praiseworthy effort on his part.

There was a possibility of orders awaiting me at the hotel; and, although it was not yet noon, I hailed a rig and drove there.  The clerk passed over the familiar yellow envelope, and my message read:  “Proceed to Hong-Kong for orders.”  I replied that I would leave at once, and the message was gone before I discovered that there wasn’t a steamer for Hong-Kong before the end of the week, five days away.

It would have sounded silly to dispatch another message, telling of lack of steamers.  I had supposed a steamer sailed every day or two, and my temper was ruffled at my mistake and the prospect of fretting away a week in the heat of Manila.

A little item in the Times gave me hope.  It told of the steamer Kut Sang coming out of dry dock to sail for Hong-Kong that very afternoon with general cargo.  There was a bare chance that I might get passage in her, for the paper referred to her as a former passenger boat, and I was sure I could cajole the company into selling me a berth, or bribe the captain into signing me as a member of the crew, with no duties to perform, a common practice.

“This is Mr. Trenholm of the Amalgamated Press,” I told the clerk in the steamship office over the hotel’s desk-telephone.  “Simply must get to Hong-Kong as soon as possible, and would like to go in the Kut Sang this afternoon.  May I buy passage in her?”