before acting on
that conclusion he caught a _Toyo Kisen Kaisha_ steamer for Shanghai,
and went over that city from the Bund and the Maloo to the narrowest
street in the native quarter. In all this second search, however, he
found nothing to reward his efforts. So he started doggedly southward
again, stopping at Saigon and Bangkok and Singapore.

At each of these ports he went through the same rounds, canvassed the
same set of officials, and made the same inquiries. Then he would go
to the native quarters, to the gambling houses, to the water-front and
the rickshaw coolies and half-naked Malay wharf-rats, holding the
departmental photograph of Binhart in his hand and inquiring of
stranger after stranger: "You know? You savvy him?" And time after
time the curious yellow faces would bend over the picture, the
inscrutable slant eyes would study the face, sometimes silently,
sometimes with a disheartening jabber of heathen tongues. But not one
trace of Binhart could he pick up.

Then he went on to Penang. There he went doggedly through the same
manoeuvers, canvassing the same rounds and putting the same questions.
And it was at Penang that a sharp-eyed young water-front coolie
squinted at the well-thumbed photograph, squinted back at Blake, and
shook his head in affirmation. A tip of a few English shillings
loosened his tongue, but as Blake understood neither Malay nor Chinese
he was in the dark until he led his coolie to a Cook's agent, who in
turn called in the local officers, who in turn consulted with the
booking-agents of the P. & O. Line. It was then Blake discovered that
Binhart had booked passage under the name of Blaisdell, twelve days
before, for Brindisi.

Blake studied the map, cashed a draft, and waited for the next steamer.
While marking time he purchased copies of "French Self-Taught" and
"Italian Self-Taught," hoping to school himself in a speaking knowledge
of these two tongues. But the effort was futile. Pore as he might
over those small volumes, he could glean nothing from their laboriously
pondered pages. His mind was no longer receptive. It seemed
indurated, hard-shelled. He had to acknowledge to his own soul that it
was beyond him. He was too old a dog to learn new tricks.

The trip to Brindisi seemed an endless one. He seemed to have lost his
earlier tendency to be a "mixer." He became more morose, more
self-immured. He found himself without the desire to make new friends,
and