And the amah fingered softly something hidden in her gown.
“About Basil!”
“About a lot of things,” Gregory said grimly. “And Basil in particular.”
“Oh! and he can help us! You think so, don’t you, Robert?”
“He can help us all right, Mrs. Gregory,” William Holman said sternly, “if he will.”
“Oh! he must. He shall!” she said hoarsely.
“At any rate, he’s coming. And that’s more than I thought,” Holman said, as a new degree and quality of hubbub belched up from the yard. And as he spoke Murray came in with two cards—a long, thin slip of crimson paper, the mandarin’s name and title inscribed on it in black Chinese characters, and an ordinary English visiting card, simply engraved “Mr. Wu.”
“He’s getting out of his rickshaw, sir,” Murray told his employer.
“And every man jack of the coolies is ko’towing to him as if he was a god,” Holman grunted from the window.
Gregory rose to his feet with a careful show of calm. “Well,” he remarked cheerfully, “we’ll soon see now what sort of stuff this well-advertised Chinaman is made of. Show him in, Murray. Holman, take my wife to the den near the counting-house. She’ll want to stay, of course, to hear the result. Now, please, off you all go.”