"My go inside yamen," the boy continued, while the comprador sidled away, gained the gangway unobserved, and presently slipped ashore. "Plenty men inside. White man he say he go sleep inside houso little time, wake up, no can find moustachee. He velly angly; he say mandalin makee opium boss smart. Mandalin say boss muss find moustachee. Boss say no can do. He say: ’Hon’ble fan-kwei[#] he belongey plenty big moustachee what time he come inside houso; no belongey what time he go wailo. Two piecee man inside all same; he look-see fan-kwei sleep; my look-see other side; hai! he shave moustachee, fan-kwei no savvy all same. My no savvy nuffin." [#] Foreign devil. "Mandalin he say, ’You plenty bad fella: you pay hundled dolla.’ Boss he cly he velly poor man; mandalin say he catchee plenty big stick: boss he pay all same. Massa Leinhadt----" "Sing Wen!" called Burroughs. But the comprador had disappeared. Burroughs was at once amused and concerned at the story. He could hardly return the moustache; he guessed that Reinhardt would hardly be pleased if he did. The trick was one of which he would not have believed his staid comprador capable; but he could only admire the dexterity with which the stolen moustache had been mounted by some ingenious Chinese barber. He felt rather sorry for the brother’s brother-in-law, who had had to disgorge the hundred dollars he had earned at the expense of Reinhardt’s future patronage. Considering the matter seriously, he felt that he had better use the ornament that so materially improved his disguise. Perhaps he might regard it as a set-off against the loan of the hydroplane. And Reinhardt could not expect much sympathy after his callous refusal to aid the man whom he had helped to ruin. The rage into which Reinhardt had been thrown by the loss of his cherished moustache made it the more necessary not to start up the river until late. Burroughs filled the interval by carefully coaching the two servants in the parts they were to play. The story he concocted did some credit to his ingenuity. He was the younger brother of Reinhardt, and had just come from Kiauchou to find his brother, and hand over to him the hydroplane and a sum of money, to be placed at the service of Su Fing, of course secretly. Having missed his brother somewhere on the river, he had pushed on rather than wait and delay the gifts of his government. In order to relieve the German authorities from the suspicion of acting in concert with the rebels, Burroughs would suggest that these latter should arrest him, and place him in the same prison as the Englishman whom they had already captured. By meting out the same treatment to a supposed German, they would certainly avert suspicion. Naturally the imprisonment would be only a pretence: he must be allowed freedom to come and go; but the pretence must be kept up with a reasonable show of determination.