“What did your letter say?” O’Neil asked earnestly. His fingers had closed upon the one hidden in his blouse.
“I don’t know all, but something about seizing or buying the Chinese battle-ships; also a lot of talk about what the United States was doing—most of it untrue and furnished by Impey and company, that’s us, you know,” including himself and Wells in a sweep of his hand. Then Randall’s eye fell upon the letter which O’Neil had drawn forth.
“Hurrah!” Randall had jumped to his feet and was hugging the astonished sailor. “That’s the very letter. Impey thought the Japs had taken it, and we were all ‘beating it’ in the yacht.”
“Well,” O’Neil’s voice was sarcastic, “some one’s been stringing you. This letter talks about a naval review of the fleet by the Emperor and a lot of other unimportant stuff.”
It was Randall’s turn to be sarcastic.
“I suppose you’ve translated it offhand yourself?” he asked, “or maybe your friend there has an intimate knowledge of Japanese classics. He looks like a scholar.”
“None of your high-brow jaw!” O’Neil’s eyes flashed; he could chaff his friend if he liked, but he resented it from a stranger. “It was read to us by a Jap steward from the ‘Alaska.’”
“Well, he did it intentionally. He was probably afraid to tell you what was really in it. But where and how did you get it?” Randall asked. Then he turned and cried aloud up the hatch to Wells who had gone to meet a boat that had come alongside, “Say, Jim, here’s the lost letter, snug enough, in this sailor’s hand!”
O’Neil explained how he had obtained it. Randall shook his head in sign of mystery.
