"Where did you leave it?" purred Meeker.

"At the post-office," I finished, amazed at his boldness in pursuing the
destination of the letter, and having no qualms of conscience about
telling him a falsehood. I did not regard it as any of his affair where I
had delivered the letter, and did not intend to inform him I had left the
bulky envelope at the Hong-Kong-Shanghai Bank.

The image of the bank-front which crossed my mind gave me another clue to
Meeker's solicitude about me and the letter. I remembered seeing a sign
over the teller's window, which stated that the bank was a branch of a
Russian financial house. What could be more natural for a Russian spy
than to cash his drafts in a place which dealt with Vladivostok and Port
Arthur, or even St. Petersburg and Moscow?

And, if he took me for a spy in the Russian service, it followed that
he must be watching me for the Japanese, and it was probable that the
cable-agent in Saigon was in the service of the Czar and found it
convenient to deliver an important document with my assistance.

At that time Manila was the headquarters for blockade-runners bound for
Port Arthur, and Russian and Japanese spies, from coolies to bankers,
were watching every ship and every stranger. So it was not strange that
I, coming from French Indo-China, with a dispatch for the Russian consul,
should be mistaken for a spy by Meeker the instant he read the address on
the envelope and saw the wax seals.

I had a mind to tell the old fellow the joke on him, but that would
require explaining where the letter to the consul came from, which would