"No doubt."
"And they'll keep an 'open door', eh? Well, what I've been thinking is this. When the war ends, it'll be time for me to slip in with a syndicate to work out some of the minerals—what! And it seems to me, from what I've heard and seen of you—especially what I've seen—that you're the right sort to be of use. You know the country; say, you've had a practical training—not wasted too much time on defunct languages, eh? and what's most to the point, you've got a pretty level head, and I'll go bail you ain't afraid of work. So, if you're agreeable, we'll strike a bargain. What?"
"I accept your offer with pleasure, sir," said Bob, his face flushed, his eyes shining. "I've always wanted to live an active life, and—"
"Shake!" said the American, relapsing into his usual laconic mode of utterance. Mrs. Pottle gleamed benevolence through her eye-glasses, and Bob's eyes sought Ethel's.
A few days later, one of the liners of the Pacific Mail was steaming across the ocean from Yokohama towards San Francisco. On the deck sat a group of three—the same three who had foregathered on the voyage out to Nagasaki seven months before. Morton and Desjardins, finding that their chances of seeing anything of the actual fighting were not improving, had asked to be recalled, and were returning by way of New York. Bob, with sick-leave from the Japanese government, had accepted an invitation to spend a few weeks with Mr. Charteris in San Francisco. The three were lolling on their deck-chairs, when a fourth figure was seen slowly rising from the companion-way.
"Well, Schwab, feel better?" shouted Morton.
"Zanks, Mr. Morton, I am vat you call fairly gumfortable. Ze sea-illness attack me not zis time so bad. Indeed," he added expansively, "I gommence to enjoy myself."
"Ah! de beautiful sea, de beautiful sun!" exclaimed Desjardins. "I look up into de blue sky lovly above, and it make me feel all de vorld is poetry."
"Bosh!" snorted Morton in his downright way. "Excuse me; no poetry in the world but what you put there. I ain't built that way; no Englishman who can eat a beefsteak is. No!"
"But, monsieur, you do yourself, you do your nation, im-mense injustice. Par exemple! vat vas it I hear last night ven I promenade myself beneas de so silent stars? Assuredly it vas de sweet voice of Mademoiselle Charteris who give a lesson to de boy Ah-Sam. I listen; I am charmed; it vas a little poem, so short, so simple, I learn it by 'art at once: