The Devils Admiral | Page 5

I might get passage in her, for the paper referred to her as a former passenger boat, and I was sure I could cajole the company into selling me a berth, or bribe the captain into signing me as a member of the crew, with no duties to perform, a common practice.
"This is Mr. Trenholm of the Amalgamated Press," I told the clerk in the steamship office over the hotel's desk-telephone. "Simply must get to Hong-Kong as soon as possible, and would like to go in the Kut Sang this afternoon. May I buy passage in her?"
It was hard to make him understand, for he was a Filipino who insisted on speaking English, although I had a working knowledge of Spanish. He first mistook me for a stevedore, then for the manager, and next for the Hong-Kong-Shanghai Bank. I stormed at him, irritated that I should have to shout my business for the benefit of the loafers in the hotel office.
"Correspondent!" I yelled in answer to his questions. "Newspaper correspondent working on the war. I want to go to Hong-Kong in the Kut Sang!"
"I am very sorry," he said, without explaining his sorrow.
"May I go in the _Kut Sang_?" I insisted, and he told me I could, and after he had talked in a low tone with somebody in his office, said that I couldn't, which was exasperating. I decided to go to the steamship office and plead with the officials. Hanging up the receiver, I signalled to the boy to call a carriage.
"You want to go in the Kut Sang, my dear sir?" came a purring voice at my shoulder. I looked up, and the Rev. Luther Meeker smiled at me.
I growled something at him to the effect that I wondered if I was ever to lose sight of him. He bowed again and grinned.
"Sorry that you object to me," he murmured, with lifted eyebrows. "But we'll let all that pass. I might inform you that it is impossible to go in the steamer Kut Sang. You will pardon me, I am sure, but I heard what you said at the telephone, and I am willing to annoy you to save you time and trouble. I repeat, there is absolutely no possibility of your getting passage in the Kut Sang."
"How do you know?" I asked, still curt with him, but feeling a trifle ashamed of myself for insulting him.
"Because they have just refused me, my dear sir--allow me--the Rev. Luther Meeker of the London Evangelical Society," and he gave me a card which had seen considerable service.
"Trenholm is my name. Sorry I haven't a card. Equally sorry, Mr. Meeker, that you have been refused passage in the Kut Sang. Excuse me, but I am in a hurry."
"It won't avail you anything to visit the office," he said, with sad mien and a sneer on his lips.
"And why not?"
"If they wouldn't let me go, a man of the cloth, with credentials from the Bishop of Salisbury, your case is hopeless."
"Thanks for the compliment," I shot at him, and left him staring after me with puzzled surprise on his wrinkled countenance. He stepped to the door and saw me enter a quilez, and there was a gleam of anger in his crafty old eyes. The sunlight made him blink, for he was not wearing goggles, and as I rolled toward the Parian Gate, I looked back and saw him standing in the door and shading his eyes with his hand to look after me.
Taking possession of a very surprised steamship-agent, I informed him that I was going to Hong-Kong in the Kut Sang, and I was ready to argue with him until the vessel sailed. A refusal was out of the question--he didn't have time to refuse. I spread all sorts of papers on the counter and threatened to bring all the officers of the Hong-Kong-Shanghai Bank up there to argue for me.
The talk about the bank seemed to help me wonderfully, for he had a whispered conversation with a gray-bearded old gentleman, who looked me over with a shrewd eye, and nodded his assent to my buying a ticket.
"It won't be necessary for you to sign ship's articles," said the agent, turning affable all of a sudden. "We have a passenger-license for the Kut Sang, although we have withdrawn her from the passenger-trade except in cases of emergency or delay of the regular ships. But she hasn't been in the passenger-trade for nearly a year and we won't undertake to guarantee the table or service.
"You won't find her equal to a liner, and the ticket is sold with the understanding that she is a cargo-boat, and if you are willing to take pot-luck with Captain Riggs, that is your affair. However, it is understood that you are not to make