"Getting on nicely?" he said.
"First chop," replied Errington, with a laugh: he had picked up some pidgin English.
"That is good. You have many flends," said the Chinaman. "Good flends are a delight in plospelity, and a stay in advessity. Bad flends--but of course you have none. Leinhadt is, of course, no flend of yours."
"I rather think he is," said Errington, nettled at once. "Why do you say that?"
"Well, you may eat with a flend, and talk to a flend, and play cards with flends, at home; but the men you play cards with away from home, they are not often flends."
"Look here, Mr. Ting, I don't understand what you are driving at. I play cards with Mr. Reinhardt: you seem to know it; have you got anything to say against it? Is he a card-sharper? Has he swindled you or any one else? If he has, you'd better say so, and then I shall know what to do."
"He has not swindled me, or any one else, that I can prove."
"Well then," cried the lad hotly, "I'll thank you to mind your own business. You bored me with your sermons when I was a kid at school; but I'm no longer a schoolboy, and I tell you flatly I won't be watched and preached at by you, if you were ten times my father's friend. I'm quite able to take care of myself."
"I could wish nothing better," said the Chinaman quietly. "I was your father's flend, and I hope I shall always be yours."
Errington had already repented of his outburst, and Mr. Ting's dignified reception of it made him feel ashamed of himself.