ONE:At the advertised time the three strangers went on board the steamer that was to carry them up the river, and took possession of the cabins assigned to them. Their only fellow-passengers were some Chinese merchants on their way to Nanking, and a consular clerk at one of the British consulates along the stream. The captain of the steamer was a jolly New-Yorker, who had an inexhaustible fund of stories, which he was never tired of telling. Though he told dozens of them daily, Frank remarked that he was not like history, for he never repeated himself. Fred remembered that some one had said to him in Japan that he would be certain of a pleasant voyage on the Yang-tse-kiang if he happened to fall in with Captain Paul on the steamer Kiang-ching. Fortune had favored him, and he had found the steamer and the captain he desired.
THREE:Ah, that had not occurred to me, said Keeling."I know one thing," the Clockwork man remarked, as the car began to move, "I'm devilish hungry."
THREE:Frank looked back as long as the station was in sight. Somebody continued to wave a delicate handkerchief until the train had disappeared; somebody's eyes were full of tears, and so were the eyes of somebody else. Somebody's good wishes followed the travellers, and the travellersFrank especiallywafted back good wishes for that somebody.