Page:Mr. Wu (IA mrwumilnlouisejo00milniala).pdf/193

 tell you he never discusses anything outside his own offices—never! And if for once he breaks that rule, he has some terrible reason for doing it—some damnably sinister motive."

"Pretty cool sort of johnnie, anyway," Tom commented, still scrutinizing Wu's note. "But I say, what an educated, professional sort of fist he writes."

"Oh!" Holman said impatiently, "he's got us both ways. He has all the advantages of a Western education without having lost a scrap of his Eastern cunning. I came out once with the skipper who took Wu to Europe—Wu and an English tutor he'd had for years—he was only a kid then, but Watson said he played a better game of chess than any white man on board—unless it was the tutor chap—had ever seen played before, bar none. Wu was nine or ten then. He's forty now, and no doubt his chess has been improving every day since."

Gregory smiled nastily. "Well," he said, "you may be perfectly correct in all you say, Holman, but it seems to me that you're all afraid of these Chinamen."

"I am, for one then," Holman muttered. "And I've been here twenty years."

"Unnecessarily afraid. I think you'll find that I'm perfectly capable of dealing with the fellow when he comes—and he'll come all right—oh, yes! he'll come."

"I wonder," Holman said.

"I'm sure I hope so," Tom Carruthers said heartily.

Holman devoutly hoped not, but he did not say it.

"He'll come," Gregory repeated didactically, almost truculently; "he'll come, as full of oil as a pound of butter. What the devil!" he added, with a displeased change of voice, as silk skirts and high-heeled shoes sounded in the hall. "I told you not to leave the hotel," he complained, with affection and dismay mingled in his