Vol. 97

No. 6

A

CHINESE gentleman, with his arms tucked up inside the brocaded sleeves of his satin coat, stood one day with one foot in China and the other upon European soil. From time to time he bore with alternate weight upon the right foot, on Chinese soil, and then upon the left foot, upon European soil, and his mental attitude shifted from right to left accordingly. The foot upon Chinese soil reflected upward to his brain the restriction of Chinese laws, the breaking of which was accompanied by heavy penalties. The foot upon European soil reassured him as to his ability to indulge himself, with no penalties whatsoever. Therefore, after balancing himself for a few moments first upon this foot, then upon that, he gave way to his inclinations and resolved to indulge them. In certain matters Europeans were more liberal than Chinese.

From this you will see that he had been standing with che foot in China, where opium traffic was prohibited, where heavy fines were attached to opium-smoking and to opium-buying, where heavy jail sentences were imposed upon those who smoked or bought opium, while the other foot, planted upon the ground of the foreign concession, assured him of his abso

lute freedom to buy opium in any quantity he chose and to smoke himself to a standstill in an opium den licensed under European auspices. In his saner moments, when not under the influence of the drug, he resented the European occupation of certain parts of Chinese territory; but when his craving for opium occurred, which it did. with great frequency, he was delighted to realize that there were certain parts of China not under the authority of the drastic laws of China, which prohibited with severe and heavy penalties the indulgences that he craved. The shop was capacious, but dark. He stated his requirements, and they were measured out to him. A large keg was withdrawn from its place on a shelf, and a gentle Chinese, clad, like himself, in satin brocades, dug into the contents of the keg with a ladle, and withdrew from it a black, molasses-like substance, which ran slowly and gummily from the ladle into the small silver box which the customer had produced. The box finally filled, with some of the contents running over the edges, the gentleman withdrew himself, having accomplished his purpose. Tucked into the security of his belt, it was impossible to detect the contraband as he again stepped over the boundary-line that separated Chinese from European soil.

Half an hour after he had stepped across the boundary-line into the native city with a large supply of opium, part of which he would retail to certain friends who had not had time to step across into the European concession to buy it for themselves, a young Englishman stood, by curious coincidence, upon the same spot recently occupied by the Chinese. He also stood with one foot upon Chinese soil, with the other upon the soil of the foreign concession, and regretted with considerable vehemence that at this dividing-line his efforts must cease. For perhaps a mile he had been pursuing the proprietor of a certain gambling den whom he wished to apprehend. At the boundary-line, which the Chinese had reached before him, his prey had escaped. He was off somewhere, safe in the devious. lanes and burrows of the native city. Therefore the Englishman stood baffled, and, making his way back into the settlement along the quays, finally reached his rooms. He pondered somewhat over the situation. That which was permitted on Chinese territory was prohibited in the foreign holdings, and the reverse. It just depended whether you were on this side the line or that as to whether or not you were a lawbreaker. Morality appeared arbitrary, determined by geographical lines, a matter of dollars and cents. Lawson walked slowly along the bund, turning the matter over in his rather limited mind. Take the opium business, he considered. The Chinese considered it harmful, and wished to abolish it. Very good; yet the foreign concessions made money out of it and insisted upon selling it.

Take another example, he reflected— gambling, his job; or, rather, his job was the suppression of gambling in the foreign holdings. The Chinese considered it harmless, a matter of individual inclination. Very good; but the foreigners considered it a vice, and he, Lawson, was appointed to run to earth Chinese fan-tan houses in the concession and suppress them. Yet his own people, the foreigners, gambled freely and uproariously in their own establishment, at the races, and at certain houses that they maintained for their pleasure.

True, these houses were not in the concession, for some reason the foreigners had set their face against gambling in the concession,-yet they maintained their establishments, showy and luxurious establishments outside the concession and upon Chinese soil. They must pay a handsome price for the privilege. Yet it was difficult to reconcile. What was right and wrong, anyway? What was moral or immoral, anyway? Lawson, of very limited intelligence, walked along, sorely puzzled. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander; well, two very different kinds of sauces, composed of very different ingredients, as far as he could see. Lawson was greatly puzzled. It begun to look to him as if morality was not an abstract, but a concrete affair. Things which the European permitted the Chinese forbade.

Just then he passed an opium shop and considered again. That surely was a nasty game, yet his Government encouraged it, and made money from it. But the Chinese, on their side of the boundary-line, were doing their best to suppress it. It was very difficult for them to make headway against it, however, since opium-shops flourished and were encouraged by the foreign concessions, over which the Chinese had no control. Topsyturvy, anyway. No wonder that a person like Lawson was unable to understand it. It all resolved itself into a question of money. For, after all, money was the main object of life, whether on the part of an individual man or of a government. And since all governments were composed of individual men, and reflected the ideas of men, there you

were.

By this time young Lawson had become bored with life in the far East. The romance was gone, and it offered little variety. One day was like another, and every day, winter and summer, it was the same thing or the same sort of things, and there was an intense sameness about it all. By day he did his work. That goes without saying. One has to work in the far East; that is what one comes out to do. Otherwise, why come, unless one is a tourist, a missionary, a buyer of Chinese an

tiques, or has had an overwhelming desire to write a book upon international politics? But, after all, why not such a book? It reaches, if it reaches at all, a public still less informed than the author, and misinformation is as valuable as no information at all when we desire to interfere with the destiny of the Chinese. In his leisure moments Lawson had tried his hand at such a book until he suddenly realized that he had been in the Orient too long to.

bor, and he laid down his pen and moved from the table to the dark window, trying in vain to see what was going on without. Below, the long line of quays was outlined by long rows of electric lights, swaying and tossing from their poles, and illumi

make it a success. He knew just a trifle too much about affairs, and found himself setting forth facts which would lead to his undoing as a minor official in the international settlement if he gave them publicity. He could not afford to lose his position, and he was by no means sure of the deep, unerring sense of justice, the innate instinct of the masses, to rally to his support. He had his own opinion of the ruling classes, but he trusted the masses still less. Lawson's lodgings overlooked the har

nating the shining wet asphalt of the bund. He was very, very tired of it all. Many years he had been out, and the same monotonous round must be gone through with over and over again day after day until he made money enough to return home; and as a salaried clerk, a court runner, whose duty it was to enforce the laws against gambling in the settlement, the day seemed very far distant indeed. Whenever he heard of a fan-tan place, and he heard of them every day, -he must investigate, see that it was closed, and the keepers, if he was lucky enough to catch them, duly punished. And the players as well. Now, to eradicate gambling among the Chinese is a difficult task, futile and ridiculous, a good waste of time and money. He wondered why his Government should attempt it. Foolish thing for his Government to do; yet what would become of Lawson if the

undertaking should be abolished? Taste tea, probably; apprentice himself to some. tea merchant, and learn all the nasty rôle of tea-spitting. From this you will see that Lawson was squeamish about some things, and did not envy those of his friends who had become tea-tasters, and who moved all day up and down a long table, filled with rows of stupid little cups.

No, the work he had was better; but he was tired of it. He leaned against the dripping, cold pane, and regarded the lights below, shining on the wet asphalt of the quays. He was thirty years old, and ten years in the East had about done for him. The East does for many people. Yes, he reflected bitterly, it had about done for him. It undermines people in some mysterious manner, and in Lawson's case there had been little to undermine. He had little imagination, and could never picture the larger possibilities of life and what he had missed; therefore the undermining of his character was of small account. He was aware only of an intense boredom, and to-night the boredom was accentuated because of the weather. was too inert to splash about in such a driving rain in quest of a friend more weary than himself.

He

If he could just get out of it all! By which, understand, he had not the adventurous spirit of the beach-comber, the adventurer who combs pleasure and profits from the ports of the China coast. He was not that sort. He had no desire to take a sampan and row out to the nearest cargo-boat and ship away to the Southern Seas, and sink himself in romance north or south of the line. No, the mystery of the East, the romance of foreign lands, made no appeal to him. And the everlasting monotony of his daily work, of his daily association with his few wearied friends, all minor and unimportant cogs of the big machine overseas, offered him nothing. Very decidedly he was homesick. But his tired mind came upon a blank wall: he had no home to be homesick for, nothing compelling, nothing to return to; all, such as it was, had been broken up long ago, long before he had come out to

the Orient. Yet he was longing for the sight of his native land again. Yes, that was it, just the familiar sight of it. It offered him nothing in the way of tie or kin, yet he was longing to see it again, just his own native land. He was exiled in China, and he was exiled at home, when you got down to it; but to-night his home land drew him with overwhelming insistence.

What can you do, I 'd like to know, when you are like this? Along the outskirts of the settlement stood big houses, cheerful with lights, with home life, with all that the successful ones had brought out from home to establish home in the Orient. But Lawson had nothing to do with them, with all the pompous, successful ones, who ignored him completely and were unaware of his existence. They were all superior to him, with all the superiority that new-found money brings, and they looked down upon him as a cheap court runner, told off to round up the fan-tan playing Chinese. You see, Lawson was common; he had sprung from nothing and was nothing. But these others, these successful ones, they, too, had sprung from nothing; but out here in the Orient they had become important. Through the possession of certain qualities which Lawson did not possess they had become large and prominent in the community. They referred to themselves among one another as "younger sons," which left one to infer that they were of distinguished lineage. But Lawson knew better, and knew it with great bitterness. Like himself, they were indeed "younger sons"-of greengrocers. Therefore, for that reason, perhaps, they went home seldom, for at home they were nobodies. Whereas out here, by reason of certain qualities which Lawson did not possess, they were important and pompous and lived in big houses, with lights and guests and servants and motors.

Therefore Lawson resented them because they thought he was common. And he was common, he admitted bitterly, but so were they. Only they were successful by reason of certain qualities which he did not possess. They ignored him, and left

him alone in the community, and it is never very good to be too much alone, especially in the far East. True, they provided him with his job, with his wretchedly paid little government job, which they maintained for no altruistic or moral reasons. To suppress gambling among the Chinese? Perhaps. Incidentally, on the surface, it looked well, he considered, coming from those who never helped the Chinese in anything else; who exploited them in all possible ways and undermined them-undermined the Chinese, who, as a people, were pretty well done. for, anyway, by nature, since they were Chinese.

No, he reflected savagely, he had heard the story, one night some big personage living in one of the big houses to which he was never invited had given a big dinner, with much wine and fine food and many guests and all the rest of it, and what happened? No servants, or, rather, many servants without liveries or clothing of any kind, everything having been pawned the evening before over the fantan-tables. Therefore he, Lawson, was employed by Government to suppress these gambling houses, to keep the servants from stealing and pawning their liveries, mak

ing embarrassment in the big, foreign-style houses, making amusement and consternation and scandal. He had happened along shortly after this affair, and so obtained the appointment.

Lawson leaned his forehead against the cold glass down which the rain poured in sheets. The lights of the French mail glimmered intermittently through the darkness; to-morrow she would weigh anchor and be off for Marseilles, for home. Not that he had a home, as we have said; but he longed for the familiar look of things, for the crowds all speaking his own tongue, for the places he knew, the well-known street signs, and the big hoardings. And he could n't go back. He had not money enough to go back. Every penny of his little salary went for living expenses, and living comes high in China. A gentle cough behind him made him turn round in a hurry. His China-boy stood expectantly in the doorway.

"What is it?" demanded Lawson, sharply. Ah Chang drew in his breath, not wishing to breathe upon his superior. The indrawn, hissing noise irritated Lawson greatly. He had been out ten years, and in that time had never learned that Ah Chang and the others were showing him.