"We'll go if we are." "Poor old Alfonso!" "Well done, Alfonso!" Such were our sentiments, and we expressed them in three polite notes, which the Chinaman instantaneously absorbed into some part of his person, and having put the hand with which he took them to his head and bowed lowly as before, he went away. And O'Brien, giving one vicious dust with his coat-sleeve of the door-post, which Ah-Fo had contaminated by a passing touch, followed the "heathen thief" to see him safe off the premises. "That's a strange race, now----" began Alister, but I ran to the window, for Dennis was on the balcony watching for the Chinaman, and remembering the scene on the stelling, I anticipated fun. "Hi, there! Fe-fo-fum, or whatever it is that they call ye!" Ah-Fo looked up with a smile of delighted recognition, which, as Dennis gave a few preliminary stamps, and began to whistle and shuffle, expanded into such hearty laughter, that he was obliged to sit down to it by the roadside. "Look here, Dennis," said our host; "we shall have a crowd collecting if you go on with this tomfoolery. Send him off." "All right, old fellow. Beg your pardon. Good-bye, Te-to-tum." It was not a respectful farewell, but there is a freemasonry of friendliness apart from words. Dennis had a kindly heart toward his fellow-creatures everywhere, and I never knew his fellow-creatures fail to find it out. "Good-bye," said Ah-Fo, lingeringly. "Good-bye again. I say, old mandarin," added the incorrigible Dennis, leaning confidentially over the balcony, "got on pretty well below there? Or did O'Brien keep the tail of his eye too tight on ye? Did ye manage to coax a greatcoat of a hall-table or any other trifle of the kind up those sleeves of yours?" This time Ah-Fo looked genuinely bewildered, but he gazed at Dennis as if he would have given anything to understand him. "Uppee sleevee--you know?" said Dennis, illustrating his meaning by signs. ("Chinese is a mighty easy language, Willie, I find, when you're used to it.") A grin of intelligence spread from ear to ear on Ah-Fo's countenance. "Eyah!" said he, and with one jerk he produced our three letters, fan-fashion, in his right hand, and then they vanished as quickly, and he clapped his empty palms and cried, "Ha, ha! Ha, ha!" "It's clever, there's no denying," said Alister, "but it's an uncanny kind of cleverness." Something uncannier was to come. Ah-Fo had stood irresolute for a minute or two, then he appeared to make up his mind, and coming close under the balcony he smiled at Dennis and said, "You lookee here." Then feeling rapidly in the inner part of his dress he brought out a common needle, which he held up to us, then pricked his finger to show that it was sharp, and held it up again, crying, "You see?" "I see," said Dennis. "Needle. Allee same as pin, barring that a pin's got a head with no eye in it, and a needle's got an eye with no head to it." "You no talkee, you lookee," pleaded Ah-Fo.