Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/241

Rh there was nothing else of cash value in the light marching order of ex-private Blake. He hired a room in a toy-like Japanese hotel, and late that night returned without his three Mexican dollars, but with the perverted energy of a runaway automobile. Charging headlong through the dainty paper walls of the hotel rather than be annoyed by trying to find the door mobilized a small army of Japanese policemen, and memory came back to Blake when he was dragged into the street, his haversack hurled at his head by the agitated landlord.

Daylight found him very thirsty and nervous, wandering along the edge of the bay, waiting for a glimpse of a blue army blouse and the tenuous hope of a small loan. He leaned against the stone wall of the Hatoba, with his haversack under his tortured head, and twisted as his cheek rubbed a hard lump beneath the canvas. Ramming his hand into the haversack with a peevish curse, "Shorty" pulled out a package wrapped in wadded silk, and unrolled a teapot of green imperial jade. A stocky manikin of the Nagasaki police