A search of adjacent streets produced nothing. Considerably crestfallen, the lad returned to the tea house and questioned the head of the establishment. He speedily learned to his chagrin that the man for whom he had been searching had left the place not five minutes previously.
"Just my luck," he murmured, petulantly. "Here, Komatsu, give this to a beggar; it's a hoodoo."
The affable manager accepted the ill-omened twenty-five cent piece with many bows and subsequently placed it among his collection of rare coins, with the inscription: "Yankee Hoodoo. Only one in Yokohama. Value, ten yen."
It was with a very disconsolate face that Nattie left the tea house on his way to the office of the new firm. He felt positive in his mind that the thin man was really Willis Round, and the actions of the fellow in slipping away so mysteriously tended to increase the lad's suspicions.
"If he cared to return to Yokohama, he could do so," he reasoned, while walking down Main Street. "It's no person's business that I can see. And if he desired to increase his ugliness by shaving off his whiskers it was his own lookout. But what I don't like is the way he sneaked out of Black's counting-room without speaking to us. He was certainly trying to avoid recognition, and that's flat.
"I wonder what he had to do with that debt?" added the lad, after a while. "He is mixed up with the Blacks in some way, and I'll wager the connection bodes ill to some one. Perhaps it is to us."
He had reached this far in his reflections when he chanced to look down a small alley leading from the main thoroughfare to a public garden. A jinrikisha was speeding past the outlet. The vehicle contained one man, and in an instant Nattie recognized in him the subject of his thoughts.
To cover the distance to the garden was a brief task for the lad's nimble feet. As he emerged from the alley, however, he plumped into a couple of American man-of-war's men. The collision carried one of them into the gutter, but the other grasped wildly at his supposed assailant's collar.
"Nattie plumped into a couple of American man-of-war's men. The
collision carried one of them into the gutter, but the other grasped
wildly at his supposed assailant's collar." (See page 64)