Mark at all, but since then we have become very intimately acquainted, as my readers will soon learn.
The voyage from the Golden Gate to Hong Kong was made without anything unusual happening. On landing at the Chinese-English port I was immediately met by Dan Holbrook, whose father was one of my parent's partners. Dan had put in two years at Hong Kong and the vicinity, and he took me around, and talked Chinese for me whenever it was required.
At last came the time when I thought I ought to think of returning to San Francisco by way of Manila, or at least to run over to the Philippines and back and then start for home. "If only you could go to Manila with me!" had been my words to Dan, to whom I was warmly attached.
"I will go," had been the ready answer, which surprised me not a little. Soon I learned that Dan had been talking the matter over with his father and mother. Mr. Holbrook was as anxious as my father to have the business connection at Manila improved, and he thought that both of us ought to be able to do something, even though I was but a boy and Dan was scarcely a young man.
Manila, the principal city of the Philippines, is located but four or five days' sail from Hong
