One of them espied the stick in Frank’s hand. He seized the other, held him fast, and pointed. Both stared in great excitement. Then they darted forward with catlike footsteps.
It happened that Starbright saw them in time, and he knocked aside the yellow hand that was outstretched to grasp the mysterious stick.
The other fellow tried to snatch the stick, but Dick’s warning cry had put Merry on his guard.
“No, you don’t!” said Frank, springing back.
“Glivee tlo me!” chattered the Celestial, his face betraying the greatest excitement and eagerness.
“Get out!” returned Merry. “Why should I give it to you?”
“Yah, yah!” chattered the other. “Yah, yah!”
“I don’t understand that kind of talk,” Merry confessed. “Chinese is not one of my accomplishments.”
“Glivee tlo me!” commanded the other, his hand still outstretched.
“Where did you lose it?” persisted Merry.
“Me no lemembal,” said the one who spoke pidgin-English. “Me lostee it. Glivee tlo me!”
“Not unless you can satisfy me that it belongs to you,” asserted Frank obstinately, for he had conceived a desire to retain possession of that curious stick. “If I knew it belonged to you, I’d give it up in a minute.”
Again the Chinaman nodded as if his neck worked on hinges.
“B’longee tlo me,” he asserted. “Glivee klick! Melican mlan gitee into double if no glivee klick.”
“Yah, yah, yah!” parroted the other, still dancing.
“I think I’ll keep it a while longer,” he said. “I am stopping here at this hotel. If you wish to find me to-morrow, come round early and show this card.”
He offered his card to the one who could talk some English. The other gave a howl and chattered something that sounded like a command.
A moment later both Chinamen made movements as if to draw weapons from beneath their coats.
“Look out for them, Merry!” burst from the freshman. “They cut sometimes!”
He sprang upon one of the Celestials, and Frank grasped the other.
Biff! biff!—two kicks, two howls, and two Chinamen went flying toward the gutter.
“Let’s retire before we get into further trouble,” suggested Frank laughingly. “This is getting altogether too swift for me.”
They turned to enter the hotel, but the Chinamen had picked themselves out of the gutter, and came running across the wide walk.