“And I’ll be glad,” said the Chinese student. “It’s been a lonesome vacation for me.”
Hop Wong, on the journey back, seemed quite a different Chinese from the chap who had written queer notes and appointed midnight trysts under the “boy-pain” tree. He smiled and even tried to perpetrate jokes, it seemed, in his native tongue—an attempt that was wasted on his auditors, though they laughed at his efforts, which seemed to please the laundryman.
Fortunately, Hop Wong did not begin to joke until they were nearly at his new home, and it was soon over.
“Good-night, Hop Wong. See you again soon, maybe,” remarked Luke, as they parted.
“Alle same good-by,” he answered blandly. “Hop Wong stay hele alle time now. Much good place, but no much money yet.”
“Oh, that reminds me!” exclaimed Ruth. “I want to give him something for his information, and if we do find any such fortune as he has provided information about, he’ll be entitled to a share. I’m sure Mr. Howbridge would say so. I want to give Hop Wong some money, Luke.”
“Well, I don’t believe he’d object to it. What say, Hop Wong? You like a little cash?”
“Sule! Cash alle same much good alle time,” was the smiling response.
So Ruth, from her purse, provided him with what, to him, must have been a goodly sum, and there was the promise of more should events warrant it.
“Good-by!” called the young people, as they left Hop Wong at his hut and turned the automobile toward Milton.