“Tell me your business!” he almost shouted at the fat Chinese. “What is it? Quick!” “Very good business,” was the reply, Yi Poon noting the other’s excitement with satisfaction. “I make much money. I buy—what you call—secrets. I sell secrets. Very nice business.” “What do you know about the Senorita Solano?” Alesandro shouted, gripping him by the shoulder. “Everything. Very important information——” But Alesandro could no longer control himself. He almost hurled the Chinaman into the house, and, not relaxing his grip, rushed him on into the living room and up to Enrico. “He has news of Leoncia!” Alesandro shouted. “Where is she?” Enrico and his sons shouted in chorus. Hah!—was Yi Poon’s thought. Such excitement, although it augured well for his business, was rather exciting for him as well. Mistaking his busy thinking for fright, Enrico stilled his sons back with an upraised hand, and addressed the visitor quietly. “Where is she?” Enrico asked. Hah!—thought Yi Poon. The senorita was lost. That was a new secret. It might be worth something some day, or any day. A nice girl, of high family and wealth such as the Solanos, lost in a Latin-American country, was information well worth possessing. Some day she might be married—there was that gossip he had heard in Colon—and some later day she might have trouble with her husband or her husband have trouble with her——at which time, she or her husband, it mattered not which, might be eager to pay high for the secret. “This Senorita Leoncia,” he said, finally, with sleek suavity. “She is not your girl. She has other papa and mama.” But Enrico’s present grief at her loss was too great to permit startlement at this explicit statement of an old secret. “Yes,” he nodded. “Though it is not known outside my family, I adopted her when she was a baby. It is strange that you should know this. But I am not interested in having you tell me what I have long since known. What I want to know now is: _where is she now_?” Yi Poon gravely and sympathetically shook his head. “That is different secret,” he explained. “Maybe I find that secret. Then I sell it to you. But I have old secret. You do not know the name of the Senorita Leoncia’s papa and mama. I know.” And old Enrico Solano could not hide his interest at the temptation of such information. “Speak,” he commanded. “Name the names, and prove them, and I shall reward.” “No,” Yi Poon shook his head. “Very poor business. I no do business that way. You pay me I tell you. My secrets good secrets. I prove my secrets. You give me five hundred pesos and big expenses from Colon to San Antonio and back to Colon and I tell you name of papa and mama.”