'I had hoped,' he said, after a few minutes' conversation, 'that you would have been here a day or two ago, for there is a very decent boat starting for Tien-tsin this afternoon, on which you would have been very comfortable. The next one will not be leaving until to-day three weeks.'
'Then let us start this afternoon,' Charlie exclaimed.
'I am quite willing,' Ping Wang said, 'if we can get you and Fred disguised in time.—As we are going to my native village, which is a very anti-foreign place,' he continued, addressing the manager, 'I think that it will be wise to have my friends disguised as Chinamen.'
'If they can act up to their disguise the suggestion is an excellent one,' the manager declared, 'for there are rumours that the Boxers or Big Sword Society are threatening to drive out all the foreigners in the land. If you wish to go on by this afternoon's boat there should be no difficulty about getting your friends disguised in time. I will send for my barber and tailor at once.'
The manager sent for the barber and tailor, and also dispatched a message to the skipper of the boat which was sailing that afternoon, the Canton. The Pages and Ping Wang had breakfast when these orders had been given, and long before they had finished their meal the barber arrived, the tailor following him very quickly. After breakfast the manager took his guests up to his bedroom, and called to the barber and the tailor to follow them. The latter had brought with him an excellent assortment of Chinese garments, and from them Ping Wang speedily selected suitable clothes for his English friends. He also chose, with the aid of the barber, a couple of splendid pigtails. Charlie having paid for the goods, the tailor departed, leaving the barber to begin shaving the Englishmen's heads and eyebrows.
Fred was the first to be operated on, and Charlie laughed heartily when he saw the alteration which the loss of eyebrows made in the appearance of his brother. The barber was a quick worker, and turning his attention to Fred's head, speedily removed with scissors and razor a large portion of his hair. He found, however, that although Fred's hair had been allowed to grow during the voyage, it was not sufficiently long for a pigtail to be tied securely to it. Therefore he sewed the pigtail to the inside of a skull-cap, and placed the cap on Fred's head.
'It is very well done,' Ping Wang admitted, when Fred was fully dressed in Chinese garments. 'If I had glanced at you casually out of doors, I should not have suspected that you were not a Chinaman.'
'But I don't like the idea of wearing this little cap,' Fred protested; 'I shall get sunstroke.'
'When you go into the sun you can wear a beehive,' Ping Wang replied, pointing to several big Chinese hats which the tailor had left for inspection.
Charlie's disguise was completed with even more speed than Fred's had been.