"Trenholm is my name. Sorry I haven't a card. Equally sorry, Mr. Meeker, that you have been refused passage in the Kut Sang. Excuse me, but I am in a hurry."
"It won't avail you anything to visit the office," he said, with sad mien and a sneer on his lips.
"And why not?"
"If they wouldn't let me go, a man of the cloth, with credentials from the Bishop of Salisbury, your case is hopeless."
"Thanks for the compliment," I shot at him, and left him staring after me with puzzled surprise on his wrinkled countenance. He stepped to the door and saw me enter a quilez, and there was a gleam of anger in his crafty old eyes. The sunlight made him blink, for he was not wearing goggles, and as I rolled toward the Parian Gate, I looked back and saw him standing in the door and shading his eyes with his hand to look after me.
Taking possession of a very surprised steamship-agent, I informed him that I was going to Hong-Kong in the Kut Sang, and I was ready to argue with him until the vessel sailed. A refusal was out of the question—he didn't have time to refuse. I spread all sorts of papers on the counter and threatened to bring all the officers of the Hong-Kong-Shanghai Bank up there to argue for me.
The talk about the bank seemed to help me wonderfully, for he had a whispered conversation with a gray-bearded old gentleman, who looked me over with a shrewd eye, and nodded his assent to my buying a ticket.
"It won't be necessary for you to sign ship's articles," said the agent, turning affable all of a sudden. "We have a passenger-license for the Kut Sang, although we have withdrawn her from the passenger-trade except in cases of emergency or delay of the regular ships. But she hasn't been in the passenger-trade for nearly a year and we won't undertake to guarantee the table or service.
"You won't find her equal to a liner, and the ticket is sold with the understanding that she is a cargo-boat, and if you are willing to take pot-luck with Captain Riggs, that is your affair. However, it is understood that you are not to make unreasonable complaints or demands of the master."
My answer to this was to dump a handful of gold coins on the counter before he could change his mind. I told him I was willing to go to Hong Kong in a coal-barge.