With that Father Somazzo left the small boy standing in the garden and
followed the other missioners into the house. Willy looked about him,
half frightened, half defiant, and giving his cap a jerk down over his
curly yellow hair muttered, as he glanced at the shining cross: "I will
climb up there, and he can punish me if he likes. Let him catch me
first."

Willy Brown was really not a naughty boy, but he could be very willful
at times. Irish by birth and accustomed to more liberty than the
Italian teacher was wont to give his pupils in Hongkong, he did not
always submit readily to the rather strict discipline of the school,
but aside from this was an exemplary child. In order to break him of
his habit of being so stubborn his teacher often commanded or forbade
him to do things which otherwise would never have been thought of a
second time. Just now the one desire of Willy's heart was to see his
father's ship, and to him the climbing of the scaffolding seemed so
wholly without danger that he looked upon the command which he had
received as an act of tyranny, and resolved to disobey. His conscience
said to him, "It is a sin to disobey," but he heeded not the small
voice within him. Before going up he sought out his favorite
companion, a little twelve year old Chinaman. The boys were of an age
and were to receive their first communion at the same time--facts which
created a bond of sympathy between two children almost as totally
unlike as it was possible for children to be. The young Chinaman was a
foundling. His parents after the fashion of many of the Chinese had
exposed him when but a few days old, thus consigning him to death,
although their heathen religion forbids the practice, and if the
Sisters of Mercy had not found and cared for him in the orphanage he
would have perished. There the boy was baptized and brought up in the
Christian religion. And when the years passed by, as Joseph--this was