Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/252

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230
THE FORTUNE OF THE INDIES

Send more detail no baby involved in case to my knowledge want whereabouts Mark and Alan Ingram.


While Li-Chen frowned behind his spectacles as he deciphered the following:


Ask you will kindly investigate case of boy held by Changhow municipal magistrate and advise me result at once.


The respective replies reached Mr. Tyler somewhat later. From the settlement came this:


Regret have no knowledge of matter can you explain?


And from the yamen:


Have investigate with same result hold one boy one baby.


Mr Tyler clutched his gray forelock.

"This is maddening!" he cried. "Purely maddening! Can't they understand the English language? We're absolutely no farther on than before! But it seems conclusive that it can't be either Mark or Alan—my message to the magistrate would have brought a definite answer if it had been either. No, we're on the