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who “run along”.’
    Suddenly Jug-Ears lost his temper completely. ‘I warned you!’ he snarled, picking up the leather cosh and swinging it at her head.
    Mei Ling ducked, the smile never faltering for a moment. Jug-Ears swung the cosh again. This time Mei Ling jumped up onto the counter and stepped daintily to one side as the oaf brought the cosh smashing down onto the polished wooden surface. He howled with pain as the impact of the blow jarred his shoulder. Mei Ling looked down at him, smiling that broad, beautiful smile of hers.
    ‘I really think you should just leave,’ she said.

    Mei Ling looked down at him, smiling that broad, beautiful smile of hers.
    For a moment he stood there, a mixture of rage and confusion plucking his face in all directions. The girl winked. Outraged, the thug tried to grab her ankles. Instead, she leaped up, performed an effortless double-somersault in midair, and landed behind him.
    Jug-Ears spun round, slashing and swiping at her with the cosh, joined this time by his rat-faced companion. Mei Ling avoided the blows of the cudgel and the cosh with another effortless leap, high in the air, over the glowing paper lantern, before landing silently at my side. I reached for my swordstick, but Mei Ling stopped me with a slight shake of her head and a delicate frown.
    Instead, she turned and confronted Ratface and Jug-Ears, who were lumbering towards her, both red in the face and panting from their useless exertions. Mei Ling stopped them in their tracks with an unblinking stare and a raised finger. Then, from between her beautiful lips, came a soft, lilting hum – likethe drone of a dragonfly. She moved her finger from side to side and, like salivating guard dogs eyeing a bone, the eyes of the two thugs followed it.
    ‘Now, you're not going to hurt my grandfather,
are
you?’ she said softly.
    ‘No,’ they grunted in unison, ‘we're not going to hurt your grandfather.’
    ‘You're going to leave, and never come back, aren't you?’
    ‘Leave and never come back,’ they intoned, their heads nodding as she raised and lowered her finger.
    ‘Excellent,’ said Mei Ling, lowering her arm and clapping her hands together like someone wiping dust from their palms.
    The two of them climbed slowly to their feet. Then, as meek and mild as a pair of whipped dogs, their tails between their legs, they laid their weapons down on the floor and shuffled across the room to the door. Ratface went out first, with Jug-Ears closing the doorquietly behind him as he brought up the rear.
    As the catch clicked shut, it was as though a spell was broken. I turned to Mei Ling.
    ‘That was absolutely incredible,’ I said. ‘Amazing … How on earth did you do that?’
    She smiled that beautiful smile of hers. ‘Grandfather doesn't approve. He calls it “showing off”,’ she said with a giggle. ‘He prefers it if I hand them an empty purse and tell them it is full.’
    From the counter Chung Lee nodded, his paper hat wobbling, and held out a hand for the professor's laundry receipt. Getting to my feet, I sheathed my sword and handed him the piece of paper – only for Mei Ling to snatch it from my fingers with another delightful giggle.
    ‘The laundry can wait,’ she told me. ‘Are you the tick-tock lad I saw eating his lunch on the roof?’
    I smiled. ‘The very same,’ I said. ‘BarnabyGrimes. Pleased to meet you.’
    I held out a hand, but Mei Ling ignored it.
    ‘And you want to know how I dealt with our unwelcome visitors just now?’
    I nodded.
    ‘You must promise me something in return,’ she said.
    ‘Yes?’ I said, intrigued.
    ‘You must promise,’ she said with a tinkling laugh, ‘to tell me what you were eating … It looked absolutely delicious!’

or the next few days I set about my tick-tock rounds with renewed purpose. Turning out the contents of my bureau, I went to work in a fresh shirt and waistcoat each day. As I highstacked all over town, delivering parcels and documents, I