e his arms in a gesture to express
futility. "I had as well stood on the highest peak of the Rockies and
read my manuscript to space. The distinguished traveller and author!"
With a hand upon his heart, he bowed gravely. "The author of one
thousand volumes of uncut leaves. Useless! Well, I suppose Harassan
found the one I gave him of some service, for he got most of his famous
Chinese lecture out of it. There was some pretty good stuff in that
book, too, but Harassan was the only man I ever heard of who agreed
with me; and he--well, he was a successful idiot."

"And of course you never shared the benefits he reaped," said I.

"Benefits from Harassan?" The Professor laughed. "Why, David, you
might have thought that I had ruined Harassan from the way he talked
when he received a letter from Todd, that president of yours. Todd
said that I would subvert the morals of the country. So the Reverend
Valerian and I parted with words--he to go to China in his mind, I to
work my way there in the body." The Professor rested himself on the
bed, and between puffs at his pipe continued: "I had an idea of going
to Tibet. That seemed to be really doing something--to go to Lhasa and
unveil its mysteries to the world. I started from Peking, afoot
mostly, and so you see I didn't make very rapid progress, and while
walking I had plenty of time to think. When I was about half-way to
the border, the absurdity of the thing came to me--spending years to
get into Tibet, only to find there a filthy land ruled by a mad
religion. I got almost to Shen-si, and turned back. Somehow China
suited me. I fell into the Chinese way of thinking, and might have
gone on satisfied with a daily dole of rice and fish had it not been
for Penelope. I never could forget Penelope. Always, it seemed to me,
she must be waiting for me to come back with my promises fulfilled, to
return a man she could be proud to own her father. It looked pretty
black for me then, David. China isn't a place to accomplish much, and
I might as well have gone on to Lhasa as to do what I did--work three
years in the consulate at Che-Foo as interpreter and useful man, eyes,
arms, and brains for a politician from Missouri. But my one purpose
was to get home, to see Penelope, to see her a woman grown, and
perhaps--I would say to myself sometimes--to speak to her."

"And you have found her a woman grown," said I. "Now you have only to
speak to her."

He shook his head.