At twenty minutes past eleven the Bradys, who had held the table far beyond the limit by tipping their waiter, began to think it time to pull out. "He will hardly come now," said the old detective. "Probably we shall hear from him to-morrow, but I am sorry we could not have finished up to-night. Alice is running a great risk, and I don't care to have her remain with that Chinese woman a moment longer than necessary." He had scarcely spoken when a very young man, little more than a boy, in fact, entered the restaurant. In his buttonhole he wore a yellow dahlia. It was rather a singular flower for a boutonniere. The Bradys noticed it at once. "Look!" whispered Harry. "A yellow dahlia, the flower Mr. Butler was to wear so that we could identify him." "Yes, but a young man--a mere boy. It must be a coincidence," the old detective replied. "I don't know, governor. He has evidently spotted you. He is coming this way." "Can Mr. Butler have sent a substitute?" The boy approached the table. He was dark and handsome, slightly undersized, and very well dressed. "Excuse me," he said in a manly way, addressing the elder detective, "are you Old King Brady?" "I am," was the reply. "I thought so. My name is Butler--Ed Butler. My father had an appointment with you to-night at half-past ten; Mr. Edward Butler, of Albany. He was too sick to come to New York. He gave out at the last moment, so he sent me in his place." "Sit down," replied Old King Brady. "You are terribly wet, my boy." "Yes, it's raining like the dickens." "Won't you have something to eat? A cup of coffee. You get good coffee here." The boy sat down with a shudder. "I don't want to eat anything in this place," he replied. "I think that mere knowledge that the food was prepared by a Chinaman would make it choke me." "You don't like the Chinese, evidently," said Harry. "Can you wonder? They have stolen my sister. Isn't that enough?" "It is sad," observed Old King Brady, "but if white men will permit their daughters to act as teachers for Chinamen, what can they expect." "That's what I say. I was opposed to Ethel having anything to do with that mission from the first, so was father, but mother encouraged her, and Ethel always would have her way. Now she has run off with a Chink, and I suppose it is the last we shall ever see of her. The minister who married them ought to be shot." It was the old story. Ed Butler's brief speech tells it. We need not enlarge. Here was a pretty Albany girl, a mission worker, eloping with one of her Chinese pupils, a man years older than herself, and now her deluded mother sought to get her back again. The Bradys would hardly have touched the case if it had not been that Mr. Butler occupied a government position at Albany, and they had been particularly requested by the chief of the Secret Service Bureau at Washington to take the matter up. So far it had been only a matter of correspondence.