"Well, Dr. Tio-King, did you see the German with his performing hat?
How I laughed!"

And so Pan Chao speaks French. What do I say? Better than French--he
speaks Persian! Most extraordinary! I must have a talk with him.




CHAPTER IX.


We started to time. The baron could not complain this time. After all,
I understood his impatience; a minute's delay might cause him to lose
the mail boat from Tien Tsin to Japan.

The day looked promising, that is to say, there might have been a wind
strong enough to put out the sun as if it were a candle, such a
hurricane as sometimes stops the locomotives of the Grand Transasiatic,
but to-day it is blowing from the west, and will be supportable, as it
blows the train along. We can remain out on the platforms.

I want to enter into conversation with Pan Chao. Popof was right; he
must be the son of some family of distinction who has been spending
some years in Paris for education and amusement. He ought to be one of
the most regular visitors at the _Twentieth Century_ "five o'clocks."

Meanwhile I will attend to other business. There is that man in the
case. A whole day will elapse before I can relieve his anxiety. In what