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 CHAPTER XXIV

The next day there was still no word of Basil, and at the Steamship Company's hong the tangle was steadily tightening.

Holman sat glowering at a telegram he was reading for the third or fourth time, but looked up impatiently as a Chinese clerk came in and stood waiting to speak.

"What now?"

"Coolie men talkee muchee. No plenty money, no can do plenty work."

"Fetch the compradore here," Holman snapped, thrusting the telegram into his waistcoat.

"Can do," the clerk said, and went out.

Tom Carruthers stood by the window, doing nothing in particular, but watching with a rueful, puzzled face the seething, jabbering coolies outside. He swung round as the clerk went. "I say, Holman, what is all this? A third demand to-day for more wages!"

Holman pushed a ledger aside abruptly. "That's what I am trying to find out, young man," he said—"just exactly what it all means."

The compradore came in a moment—a middle-aged Chinese, as capable looking in his way as Holman was in his. He stood waiting stolidly for the manager to speak, but Holman delayed a little, measuring the Mongol with his shrewd blue eyes before he said: "Look here, compradore, what the devil is the matter with your coolies now? Why have they struck work again, and