y."

"You're a good fellow," Brown cried, already half asleep. "When I get
out of this I'll tell you something that'll make your fortune. Bring
back another bottle of gin. Thish mos' gone!"

Ned stood by the door for a moment in order to give the spy time to get
back to the bottom of the stairs. He could see no profit in a struggle
in that place, and there was certain to be one if he permitted the spy
to know that his movements had been observed.

Finally he heard soft footsteps on the stairs. He waited only an instant
after this before passing out into the narrow hall. The staircase was
clear, but a door opening into it from the public room below was open
and a broad zone of light lay on the floor of the passage and on the
wall.

Ned stood in the doorway and looked out on the street, now and then
turning his eyes in the direction of the public room. At a table well
toward the back end of the place he saw the man he was looking for. He
was seated at a table with two men who appeared to be American sailors.
While he stood there, wondering at the inefficiency of the disguise the
man wore, at the nerve which prompted him to wear that fragment of
native costume when his face, manner and accent bespoke the cultured
American another sailor came swaggering into the place.

This sailor was unquestionably intoxicated. He swayed back and forth as
he walked, and would have fallen to the floor at the very door only for
the restraining hand of a boy who accompanied him. Immediately on his
appearance waiters rushed forward to attend to his wants, to give him a
chair and a table, and to pay him all sorts of little attentions.

In such places in all foreign ports the American sailor is the easy
mark. He drinks--when he drinks at all--until he is past all wisdom
regarding the expenditure of money, with the result that he literally
throws it away. In the appearance of this sailor the attendants saw a
rich harvest, not only for the place but for themselves.

But Ned saw more than this. He saw the freckled face and sparkling eyes
of Jimmie McGraw, steering the drunken sailor to the table pointed out
for him. The boy was in high humor, for he joked with the blundering
sailor, and instead of sitting down at the table--brought into use there
because the foreigners insist on not drinking sitting on the floor--he
sat down on it and swung his feet downward.

"Look at the kid!" one of the men at the table Ned was watching said.
"Looks li