The picturesque harbor, full of sampans and junks, the gay streets, full of color and movement, the thousand unfamiliar sights and sounds, held no interest for the Honorable Percival.  His whole attention was focused upon the jinrikishas that constantly arrived and departed at the entrance below.

He wanted to see Bobby’s face and read there the signs of contrition, which he felt sure must have followed her unfeeling conduct of the night before.  But he intended to punish her before he forgave.  Such a violence to their friendship could not go unrebuked.  Even when he received the note of apology which he felt sure she would send up the moment she reached the hotel, he would delay answering it.  She must be made to suffer in order to profit by this unhappy experience.

His reflections were interrupted by a rap at the door, which called him away from the window.  It proved to be a sleek Chinaman, who proffered his card, bearing the inscription: 

“G.  Lung Fat, Ladies’ and Gents’ Tailer.”

G. Lung Fat, it seemed, had beheld Percival in the lobby and been greatly impressed with his bearing.  It would be an honor, he urged, with the fervor of an artist craving permission to paint a subject that had captured his fancy, to cut, fit, and finish any number of garments for such a figure before the ship sailed on the morrow.

Percival was impressed.  He examined the samples with the air of a connoisseur.  Like most Englishmen, he had a weakness for light clothes and sun-helmets.  The regalia suggested English supremacy in foreign lands.  He had ordered his fourth suit and was earnestly considering a white dinner-jacket when familiar voices from the street below made him spring to the window.

It was Bobby Boynton and Andy Black, who were evidently setting forth in jinrikishas alone, Mrs. Weston and the other young people remaining to inspect the fascinating array of curios that were being displayed on the pavement.  If any sorrow for past misdeeds dwelt in Bobby’s bosom, there was certainly no trace of it on her face as she called gaily back over her shoulder: 

“We are off for a lark; you needn’t look for us until you see us.”

Percival dismissed the Chinaman peremptorily, and paced his room in indignation.  It was incredible that a girl who had basked in the sun of his approval could find even temporary pleasure in the feeble rushlight of Andy Black’s society.  Not that it made the slightest difference to him where she went or with whom.  If her father saw fit to permit her to go forth in a strange city with a strange man, unchaperoned, of course it was not for him to interfere.  But that she should have, at the first opportunity, disregarded his counsels, to which she had listened with such flattering attention, angered him beyond measure.  He bitterly assured himself that all women were alike, an assertion which seems to bring universal relief to the masculine mind.