'Trust me, Mirlees,' he concluded, the words coming out in a crescendo of intensity. 'Trust me, and by God, you shall never have reason to regret it.' 'Very well,' I said. 'It's putting ourselves in the wrong, but I'm game if you are.' Philipson took my hand again and wrung it. 'We are going to be friends, I can feel,' he said. 'Now, we shall look less suspicious if we are both in the same costume, and though few would believe it, I can turn you into a Chinaman quicker than I can get myself back into a European. Come into this room.' I followed him along the passage to a little chamber curiously like the dressing room of a theatre, and there, with the help of Philipson and his boy and a pile of native clothes and dyes and artificial pigtails, I was soon as presentable a Celestial as it is possible for a European to make himself. Philipson chuckled as he watched me hurry into the Chinese dress. 'Not your first appearance in this rôle, Mirlees?' he said. 'Not by miles,' I replied, frogging up the grey _maokua_ at my left shoulder. 'Fan, pipe--I think that's everything.' In a few moments Philipson had put back the native touches on his own exterior, two ricshas appeared at the door as if from nowhere, and we were whirling off towards the French Bund. Nobody made any attempt to molest us, but I had an uncomfortable sense--perhaps a fanciful one--that our movements were being noted; at any rate, when we came to the water's edge it was clear enough this was the case. There were two natives lounging on the wharf. They gave no sign that they had even seen us arrive, but for all that I noticed, when I looked back from the sampan in which we were pulling out to the mooring place of the launch that both these loafers had disappeared. I heard Philipson laugh softly to himself. 'You saw that, Mirlees?' he said. 'Those fellows have gone back to report.' 'But _they_ couldn't know anything about the dust-up of to-night?' 'Not yet, perhaps, but they very soon will. And our friends of the opium-den will know that we have left by the launch, which those two had been detailed to watch.' 'Perhaps I could help better, Philipson,' I said 'if I knew exactly what we _are_ up against.' 'An organisation, Mirlees,' he replied. 'A large and powerful and highly unscrupulous one, too I fear. But the story is a long one, and unless I am much mistaken our time for the next hour or so is going to be fully occupied with more pressing matters.' On board the launch, a long clean-lined craft and, as I knew before I'd been two minutes in her of great engine power, we found a native on guard. The fellow challenged us sharply as our sampan drew near. Philipson's answer was to order him to start up and cast off moorings; we boarded the launch, paid the sampan man, and a moment later had swung away down stream without lights. The engine purred gently and musically, but a big arrowhead of foam that lay out at once from our bow proved we were moving fast, if quietly.