Inspector Burke made haste to remark:
“I say, let me give you the very man for the job. Kittridge is his name. It’s rather awkward, for he is in clink at present, the British jail. But his time expires to-morrow—he was given thirty days—and I dare say the magistrate will be willing to sign release papers if I explain the situation.”
“I am not asking me men for references,” observed O’Shea, “but, as a matter of mild curiosity, what did ye put this Kittridge away for?”
“He tried to whip my entire Sikh police force, and he made a jolly good beginning. Then his ship sailed away and left him in quod. He was engineer in a Cardiff tramp. A very good man, I understand.”
“He sounds like it. His references are most satisfactory, especially what he did to your turbanned cops,” O’Shea cordially affirmed. “Send this Kittridge to the Hotel London, if ye please, and give him this card of mine, and tell him to wait for me there.”
Through the afternoon Captain Michael O’Shea, now master of the aged river steamer Whang Ho, was the busiest and most energetic of men. A hundred and one things presented themselves as necessary to be done. When at length he hurried into the Hotel London shortly before the supper-hour his men were waiting, hopeful, expectant, cheerful, smoking his cigars and with the three drinks apiece tucked under their belts. Among them was a lanky, solemn person with a pair of gray side-whiskers and a leathery complexion crisscrossed by a net-work of fine wrinkles. His whole appearance was eminently decorous and respectable and he seemed to have strayed into the wrong company. It was not far-fetched to conjecture that he might be a missionary from some station in the Chinese hinterland who had kindly concerned himself with the souls of this congregation of black sheep.
Captain O’Shea bowed to him with a puzzled, respectful air, at which the pious stranger remarked:
“Inspector Burke told me to report here and be damn quick about it. I am Kittridge, and I hear you are wanting an engineer.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Kittridge. I came near mistakin’ you for a sky-pilot. And so your favorite pastime is beating up Sikh policemen! I have a job for ye at double the wages you got in your tramp steamer, whatever they were. Are you willing?”
“I would sign on with the devil himself to get clear of this blankety-blank pig-hole of a blistering Shanghai,” promptly exclaimed Mr. Kittridge. “Where’s your ship? Shall I go aboard at once?”