“McDougal was a slippery customer, so? I haf a immense fondness for him. By the landing here he left me to go in a ’rickshaw, _sehr schnell_, to a room what he haf hired for to-night und fetch some little t’ings what belonged to him, mostly books und some papers mit writings on ’em. He haf come to Shanghai, he tells me, mit a small bundle which he never loses, drunk or sober. While the tug is makin’ steam und haulin’ her lines aboard he will do his errand. It vas an hour ago. I do not understand, but I must not wait.” “Changed his mind,” suggested Paddy Blake. “Sorry ye are shy a shipmate, but the news will please me friend Captain O’Shea here. You lose. He wins.” The hull of the _Arrow_ was trembling to the thresh of the screw, and her skipper was bawling the order to cast off. Captain Spreckels shouted farewell as the two visitors jumped ashore, and the tug moved astern into the fair-way. As they walked toward the ’rickshaws O’Shea remarked: “’Tis no use to go rummagin’ around to-night in search of McDougal, I suppose.” “No, but I will find him for ye to-morrow,” replied Paddy Blake. “If he has a room in the English quarter ye can gamble he will drop into my place. If he don’t I will sind a bright lad to round him up. ’Tis easy findin’ him as long as he is not livin’ in the native city. What do ye suppose become of him, annyhow?” “Maybe he flinched from the notion of quitting the East. When it gets in the blood of these tropical tramps, the grip of it is not easy to break.” “And he lost his nerve at the last minute,” said Paddy Blake. “I’ve seen cases like it. I’m that way meself.” Declining a cordial invitation to have a “nightcap,” O’Shea told his ’rickshaw cooly to take him to the Astor House. It seemed extraordinary that his quixotic pilgrimage should have so soon disclosed the identity of the derelict who had drifted into the comfortable haven of Johnny Kent’s farm. This, however, did not greatly astonish O’Shea, who knew that the steps of sailormen in alien ports are not apt to stray far from the water-side. The singular feature of the business was that he should run across the sodden beach-comber, McDougal, who was the needle in a hay-stack of prodigious size. The hand of destiny was in it. At breakfast next morning Captain O’Shea enjoyed overhearing the talk of a party of American tourists at a near-by table. In their turn the younger women did not fail to observe with interest the clean-cut, resolute shipmaster smartly turned out in fresh white clothes. After they had left the dining-room he picked up a copy of _The Shanghai Mercury_ and carelessly turned to the shipping news where these lines caught his eye: Bark _Wilhelmina Augusta_, Spreckels master, cleared for Hamburg with general cargo. Sailed Woosung this A. M.