"I wonder if they could possibly be bribed?" Alan speculated.
While he was busy with this thought, there came a stir in the courtyard, the bump of carrying-chairs being unslung, and then there appeared through the gateway a man and a woman in European dress. Alan's heart leaped as he sprang to his feet. The man was young, and professional-looking in his white duck clothes; he might have been a hospital interne or a mission-worker. The woman was older, sandy and tall, with a slow gleam in her gray eyes and the quaintest drawl to the Chinese words she spoke to one of the young clerks.
"You spin the lingo better than I ever will," the young man said. "Tell him Dr. Rodney says he must send his mother to the hospital at once or there's no telling what'll happen. I even heard that they let some native quack put one of those awful green devil-plasters on her."
So the woman turned to address the Chinese youth, and as she talked her slow eyes strayed past him to where Alan stood, all afire, waiting his chance to speak.
"Hullo," she thought inwardly, below the
