Four days after Burroughs dispatched his letter to Errington, when the lapse of time showed pretty plainly that it was not likely to get an answer, he received a visit from Mr. Ting. The merchant, though he had refused Errington’s request for help, had not done so out of hard-heartedness or stinginess, but from a wish that the boy should learn a severe lesson, that would leave an enduring stamp. But when he had gone a few days’ journey down the river his heart smote him. He was young enough himself to understand the racking anxiety which his old friend’s son was suffering; and his knowledge of the desperate expedients to which harassed young fellows sometimes resorted, made him decide to return to Chia-ling Fu, so that he might be at hand to rescue Errington from the worst consequences of his folly. He had called at Sui-Fu on his way up a few days before, intending to find out from Burroughs more precise details of Errington’s circumstances; for as yet he had not heard of the split between the two friends. But Burroughs chanced to be absent up country, and they did not meet. On this second occasion, however, Burroughs was in his office when the Chinaman called. "How d’you do, Mr. Ting?" he said; "sorry I wasn’t in the other day. All well at Shanghai?" "Yes, when I left. That is now some days ago. You are doing well, your father says." "Rubbing along, you know. These disturbances up the river aren’t good for business." "That is tlue. And your flend Pidge--I have his school name, you see--will know that even better than you. I saw him a few days ago." Burroughs did not reply, and Mr. Ting’s observant eyes detected an air of constraint in his manner. "You do not see him so often now, of course," the Chinaman went on. "That is a pity, when you are such good flends. It is a pity, too, that he is so fa’ away. He did not look well: do you know what tloubles him?" "He hasn’t said anything to me," said Burroughs, looking still more uncomfortable. "He has not sent you a letter lately?" "No," said Burroughs, adding hastily: "but I wrote to him a few days ago." "And you have heard of no tlouble he is in?" Mr. Ting persisted. Burroughs hesitated: it was his way to think before he spoke. He had heard only gossip about the card-playing that went on at Chia-ling Fu, and it seemed hardly fair to Errington to discuss his personal matters merely on hearsay. Mr. Ting, of course, was his friend; all the more reason, thought Burroughs, for not telling what Errington himself had evidently not told. But Mr. Ting seemed to divine what was passing in the boy’s mind. "I think you had better tell me all about it," he said quietly. "I have a good leason for asking: we are both his flends. Tlouble neglected becomes still more tloublesome, as we say. Tell me, then." "The truth is," said Burroughs, won over by the Chinaman’s evident sincerity, "Pidge and I have had a row. A ridiculous cause. He thought I doubted his honour; I lost my wool----"