at these proceedings, in which there is
nothing surprising. Surely the general manager of the line ought to
keep an eye on the illustrious defunct, entrusted to the care of the
Grand Transasiatic?

The gong was struck for the last time; we hasten into our cars.

And the baron, what has become of him?

Here he comes out on to the platform like a whirlwind. He has found his
papers at the bottom of his nineteenth pocket. He has obtained the
necessary visa--and it was time.

"Passengers for Pekin, take your seats!" shouts Popof in a sonorous
voice.

The train trembles, it starts, it has gone.

CHAPTER XVII.

We are off on a Chinese railway, single line, the train drawn by a
Chinese engine, driven by a Chinese driver. Let us hope we shall not be
telescoped on the road, for among the passengers is one of the chief
functionaries of the company in the person of Faruskiar.

After all, if an accident should happen it will break the monotony of
the journey, and furnish me with an episode. I am forced to admit that
up to the present my personages have not behaved as I expected. The
drama does not run well, the action languishes. We want something
startling to bring all the actors on--what Caterna would call "a good
fourth act."

But then Ephrinell and Miss Bluett are all the time absorbed in their
commercial tete-a-tete. Pan Chao and the doctor amused me for a time,
but they are not equal to it now. The actor and the actress are of no
use without opportunity. Kinko, Kinko himself, on whom I had built such
hopes, has passed the frontier without difficulty, he will reach Pekin,
he will marry Zinca Klork. Decidedly there is a want of excitement. I
cannot get anything out of the corpse of Yen Lou! and the readers of
the _Twentieth Century_ who looked to me for something sensational and
thrilling.

Must I have recourse to the German baron? No! he is merely ridiculous,
stupidly ridiculous, and he has no interest for me.

I return to my idea: I want a hero, and up to the present no hero has
appeared on the scene.

Evidently the moment has come to enter into more intimate relations
with Faruskiar. Perhaps he will not now be so close in his incognito.
We are under his orders, so to say. He is the mayor of our rolling
town, and a mayor owes something to those he governs. Besides, in the
event of Kinko's fraud being discovered I may as well secure the
protection of this high functionary.

Our train runs at only moder