Jack burst into a roar of laughter, and translated the boy's pidgin to the bewildered Frenchman. While the Russians were intent on searching Jack, and their backs were towards Hi Lo, the boy, knowing that his turn must come, seized the opportunity to slip the precious papers into the unclosed envelope on the table. Monsieur Brin flung up his hands and began to pirouette, then stopped to laugh, and held his shaking sides.
"Hi! hi! admirable! Excellentissime! Bravo! bravo! Ma foi! Comme il est adroit! Comme il est spirituel! Ho! ho! Tiens! Le gars mérite une forte récompense. Voilà!"
In his excess of enthusiasm he took a silver dollar from his pocket, spun it, and handed it to Hi Lo. The boy was sober in an instant. He gravely handed the coin back.
"No wantchee Fa-lan-sai man he dollar," he said.
Brin looked to Jack for an explanation.
"He is much obliged, but would rather not. You made a little mistake, Monsieur. You can't offend a Chinaman of this sort more than by offering him money. He is, indeed, a clever little chap. I'll take care he doesn't go unrewarded."
"Ha! That is another point for my chapter on the characteristics of the Chinese. But now, my friend, what will you do?"
"Really, Monsieur, I don't know. I must talk it over with the compradore."
"Very well then, I leave you. I go to write notes of this most interesting episode. I begin to enjoy war correspondence. You go at eight? I will be at the station to say adieu."
Jack spent more than an hour in serious consultation with Hi An, the compradore, a man of forty, who had served his father for nearly twenty years, and was heart and soul devoted to his interests. There was no question but that Jack must leave Moukden that night, and Hi An advised him to go straight to Moscow and take the first opportunity of communicating with the British Foreign Office. Meanwhile the compradore himself would do what he could to trace the whereabouts of his master. But this course Jack was very unwilling to adopt. In the first place, he had his father's instructions to realize the securities, so cleverly saved by Hi Lo. Then there was the consignment of flour which he hoped might run the Japanese blockade and come safe to harbour at Vladivostok. If it should arrive it would be worth a large sum of money, and Jack was not disposed to yield that a spoil to the Russians. Last and most important consideration, he was oppressed by the mystery of his father's fate. With the likelihood of innumerable delays on the congested railway, he might be three weeks or a month reaching Moscow; he foresaw difficulties in inducing the Foreign Office to move in a case where there was so little to go upon; and, above all, it was unendurable to think that his father might, for all he knew, be still near at hand, in danger and distress.