“I’m off to-morrow night.”
“Where away?”
“Somewhere to the east.”
The Australian fell silent a moment, and his voice was apologetic when he spoke again.
“I quit my job to-day. There’s the plague, and the summer coming on, and they expected me to take orders from a babu manager. Calcutta is no good. I’d like to get to Hong Kong, but the boys say no beachcomber can make it in a year. Think you’ll come anywhere near there?”
“Expect to be there inside a couple of months.”
“How if we go pards?” murmured James. “I’ve never been on the road much, but I’ve bummed around Australia some after kangaroos, and I’ve got fourteen dibs. I’ll put that up for my part of the stake.”
“Sure,” I answered, for of all the inmates of the Institute there was no one I should sooner have chosen as a partner for the rough days to come, than James.
“How’ll we make it?” he queried. “It’s a long jump.”
“I’ll set you right to Goalando,” I replied, “and you can fix me up on the Ganges boat, if the skipper turns us down. If we can make Chittagong I think we can beat it through the jungle to Mandalay, though the boys say we can’t. Then we’ll drop down to Rangoon. They say shipping is good there. But let’s have it understood that when we hit Hong Kong each one goes where he likes.”