Produced by Al Haines.
[Illustration: Cover]
[Illustration: MR. TING ASTONISHES THE SCHOOL _See page_ 14]
THE FLYING BOAT
_A STORY OF ADVENTURE
AND MISADVENTURE_
BY
HERBERT STRANG
_ILLUSTRATED BY T. C. DUGDALE_
LONDON
HENRY FROWDE
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
1912
RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
BRUNSWICK STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E.,
AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER THE FIRST
ENTER MR. TING
CHAPTER THE SECOND
ERRINGTON MAKES A FRIEND
CHAPTER THE THIRD
A MOVE UP COUNTRY
CHAPTER THE FOURTH
RIVER PIRATES
CHAPTER THE FIFTH
DIVIDED WAYS
CHAPTER THE SIXTH
MR. TING SPEAKS OUT
CHAPTER THE SEVENTH
A DISCOVERY IN THE SWAMP
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH
CROWDED MOMENTS
CHAPTER THE NINTH
SU FING'S PRISONER
CHAPTER THE TENTH
LO SAN'S PILGRIMAGE
CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH
REINHARDT SHOWS HIS COLOURS
CHAPTER THE TWELFTH
THE PRICE OF A MOUSTACHE
CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH
RECONCILIATION
CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH
"MY BROTHER!"
CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH
REINHARDT IN THE TOILS
CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH
A LITTLE LUNCHEON PARTY
CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH
THE DASH FROM THE YAMEN
CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH
WINGED
CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH
HIDE AND SEEK
CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH
WILL-O'-THE-WISP
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST
THE END OF THE CHASE
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND
MR. TING EXPLAINS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
MR. TING ASTONISHES THE SCHOOL (see page 14) . . . . . . Frontispiece
A BRUSH WITH RIVER PIRATES
A CRITICAL MOMENT
REINHARDT AVENGES HIS LOSS
ERRINGTON HITS OUT
RUNNING THE GAUNTLET
CHAPTER I
ENTER MR. TING
The term was drawing to its close, and all Cheltonia, from the senior
prefect to the smallest whipper-snapper of the fourth form, was in the
playing-field, practising for the sports. The centre of the greatest
interest was perhaps the spot where certain big fellows of the sixth
were engaged in a friendly preliminary rivalry for the high jump. There
was Reginald Hattersley-Carr, who stood six feet two in his socks--a
strapping young giant whom small boys gazed up at with awe, the despair
of the masters, the object of a certain dislike among the prefects for
his swank. There was Pierce Errington, who beside the holder of the
double-barrelled name looked small, though his height was five feet ten.
He was the most popular fellow in the school--dangerously popular for
one of his temperament, for he was easy-going, mercurial, speaking and
acting impulsively, too often rash, with a streak of the gambler in his
composition--though, to be sure, he had little chance of being unduly
speculative on his school pocket-money. And there was Ted Burroughs,
Errington's particular chum, equally tall, almost equally popular, but
as different in temperament as any man could be. Burroughs was popular
because he was such a downright fellow, open as the day, a fellow
everybody trusted. He always thought before he spoke, and acted with
deliberation. He held very strong views as to what he or others should
do or should not do, and carried out his principles with a firm will.
As was natural, he did not easily make allowances for other men's
weaknesses, except in the case of Errington, to whom he would concede
more than to any one else.
It was known that the high jump would fall to one of these three, and
their performances at the bar were watched with keen appreciation by a
small crowd of boys in the lower school. Hattersley-Carr had just
cleared five feet three, and Errington was stripping off his sweater, in
preparation for taking his run, when the school porter came up, an old
soldier as stiff as a ramrod, and addressed him.
"A gentleman to see you," he said.
"Oh, bother!" said Errington. "Who is it, Perkins?"
"A stranger to me; a sort of foreigner by the look of him: in fact, what
you might call a heathen Chinee."
"Bless my aunt!" Errington ejaculated, with a droll look at Burroughs.
"Did you tell him where I was?"
"I said as how you were jumping, most like; and he said as how he'd like
to see; not much of a sport, either, by the looks of him."
Now hospitality to visitors was a tradition at Cheltonia, and with the
eyes of the small boys upon him Errington knew that he must accept the
inevitable. But it was the law of the place that an afternoon visitor
should be invited to tea at the prefects' table, and Errington, with a
school-boy's susceptibility, at once foresaw a good deal of quizzing and
subsequent "chipping" at the embarrassing presence of a Chinaman.
"Rotten nuisance!" he said, in an undertone. "Still!"--and with a
half-humorous shrug he put on his sweater and blazer and walked across
to the school-house.
A few minutes afterwards there was a buzz of excitement all over the
field when he was seen returning with his visitor. It was an
unprecedented spectacle. Beside the tall athletic form of Errington
walked with quick and springy steps a little Chinaman, not much above
five feet in height, slight, thin, with a very long pigtail, and a keen,
alert countenance that wore an expression of vivid curiosity. There was
a tittering and nudging among the smaller boys, who, however, did not
desist from their occupations, and only shot an occasional side-long
glance at the stranger. The members of the sixth looked on with a
carefully cultivated affectation of indifference. Errington led the
Chinaman to the spot where Burroughs and Hattersley-Carr were standing
together, and with a pleasant smile introduced his school-fellows.
"This is Burroughs--you've heard of him. They call him the Mole here.
Hats--Hattersley-Carr, our strong man--Mr. Ting."
Burroughs shook hands with the Chinaman, who shot a keen look at him, as
if trying to discover why, his name being Burroughs, he was called the
Mole. Hattersley-Carr had his hands behind him, gave the visitor the
faintest possible acknowledgment, and then looked over his head, as if
he no longer existed. Errington afterwards declared that he sniffed.
Burroughs caught a twinkle of amusement in Mr. Ting's face, as, glancing
up at the supercilious young giant towering above him, he said, in a
high-pitched jerky voice, but an unexceptionable accent--
"Once a servant of Mr. Ellington's father, sir."
Hattersley-Carr paid no attention. Errington flushed, and was on the
point of rapping out something that would hardly have been pleasant,
when Burroughs interposed.
"Buck up, Pidge; we've both cleared half-an-inch higher," he said. "The
tea-bell will ring in a jiffy."
Whether it was that Errington was in specially good form, or that he was
spurred on by Hattersley-Carr's impoliteness, it is a fact that during
the next twenty minutes he twice outdid his two competitors by
half-an-inch. Mr. Ting was as keen a spectator as any boy in the crowd,
which, now that the jumping furnished a pretext, had grown much larger
by the afflux of many who were more interested in the Chinaman. The bar
stood at five feet five, and Hattersley-Carr had just failed to clear it
at the third attempt, when Mr. Ting turned to Burroughs at his side, and
said--
"Most intelesting. Is it allowed for visitors to tly?"
"Why, certainly," replied Burroughs, hiding his astonishment with an
effort. "But----" He glanced down at the clumsy-looking Chinese boots.
"I should like to tly," said the Chinaman, and, lifting his feet one
after the other, he took off his boots, tucked up his robe about his
loins, and walked to the spot where Hattersley-Carr had begun his run.
There was what the reporters call a "sensation" among the crowd. The
idea of this little foreigner, a Chinaman, actually with a pigtail, and
without running shorts, attempting a jump at which Hats had failed,
seemed to them the best of jokes, and they lined up on each side,
prepared to laugh, and pick up the little man when he fell, and give him
an ironical cheer. Hattersley-Carr stood by one post, his hands on his
hips, his lips wrinkled in a sneer. Errington and the Mole stood
together near him, the former's face shaded with annoyance, for it was
bad enough to have to entertain a Chinaman at all, without the
additional ridicule which a sorry failure at the jumping bar would
entail. The expression on Burroughs' countenance was simply one of
sober amusement.
A dead silence fell upon the crowd. Mr. Ting had halted, and was tucking
up the long sleeves of his tunic, and putting on a pair of spectacles.
He began to run, his feet twinkling over the grass. His pace quickened;
within three yards of the bar he seemed to crouch almost to the ground;
then up he flew, his pigtail flying out behind him, the eyes and mouths
of the small boys opening wider with amazement. There was the bar,
steady in its sockets; and there was Mr. Ting, standing erect on the
other side, his features rippling with a Chinese smile.
Then the cheers broke out. "Good old Chinaman!" "Well _done_, sir!"
"Ripping old sport!" (Mr. Ting was thirty-five.) A dozen rushed forward
to shake hands with him; a score flung their caps into the air; a
hundred roared and yelled like Red Indians. Errington grinned at
Hattersley-Carr; Burroughs stepped forward quietly with Mr. Ting's
boots; and Hattersley-Carr stood in the same attitude, with the same
supercilious curl of the lip.
The warning bell rang; there was a quarter of an hour for changing
before tea, and the throng trooped off, some to the changing-rooms, the
idle onlookers to talk over the Chinaman's performance. Burroughs led
Mr. Ting towards the house, Errington and Hattersley-Carr following
together.
"You _silly_ ass!" said Errington.
"How much?"
"He was my father's comprador--confidential secretary, factotum, almost
partner."
"Well, he said servant: how was I to know your rotten Chinese ways?"
"Anyhow, you shouldn't be such a beastly snob."
And at that Hattersley-Carr turned on his heel and strode alone out of
the field, and out of this history.