over my shoulder, I saw the Rev. Luther Meeker.




CHAPTER II

RED-HEADED BEGGAR AND MISSIONARY


Turning my back on him, I edged toward a desk. It seemed to me that he
had not recognized me as the austere man in the bus, or perhaps he chose
to pass without encountering me again. He stared about the place, leaning
on one leg for a minute as if undecided what to do next, or not quite
sure he was in the right establishment.

I could hear voices in a room close at hand, and Meeker turned toward the
door, walking silently in his cloth deck-shoes, and passed into the room.
I heard a man give a cry of astonishment, followed by a growl of wrath,
and Meeker ran out again, retreating backward and holding his hands up in
protest.

"My dear sirs!" he whined. "No offence, I am sure! I hope you have taken
no offence, for none was intended, and I did not mean to disturb any
person--I was simply asking alms for a seamen's chapel, and I do most
sincerely beg your pardons, gentlemen."

He went into the street, and a sallow-faced man with a slender malacca
cane held in his hand as if it were a rapier, came to the door of the
room and said something in French, indignant that he should be disturbed.