to explain that one of these impertinent yellow
pigs had tried to extort three times the legal fare, and his case was
won. No coolie could successfully contradict the word of a foreigner,
no police court, should matters go as far as that, would take a
Chinaman's word against that of a white man. He was quite secure in
his bullying, in his dishonesty, in his brutality, and there is no
place on earth where the white man is more secure in his
whitemanishness than in this Settlement, administered by the ruling
races of the world. Rivers thoroughly enjoyed these street fracases,
in which he was the natural and logical victor. He enjoyed telling
about them afterward, for they served to illustrate his conception of
the Chinese character and of the Chinese race in general. It was but
natural for him to feel this way, seeing what losses he had suffered
through the revolution. As he told of his losses, it was not apparent
to an outsider that the hotel had not been utterly and entirely his
property, instead of an old Buddhist temple rented from the priests
for one hundred dollars Mex. a year.

Besides Rivers, others in the town in the interior had suffered
hardships. Among them was his number-one boy, Kwong, who had served
him faithfully for several years. Kwong had been rather hard hit by
the uprising. His wretched little hovel had been burned to the ground,
his wife had fallen victim to a bullet, while his two younger children
disappeared during the excitement and were never heard of again.
Killed, presumably. After the victorious rebels had had their way, all
that remained to Kwong was his son Liu, aged eighteen, and these two
decided to come down to Shanghai and earn their living amidst more
civilized surroundings. One of the strongest arguments in favour of
the International Settlement is that it affords safety and protection
to the Chinese. They flock to it in great numbers, preferring the just
and beneficent administration of the white man to the uncertainties of
native rule. So Kwong and his son made their way down the Yangtzse,
floating down river on a stately junk with ragged matting sails. It
was the tide, and a bamboo pole for pushing, rather than any
assistance derived from the ragged sails, which eventually landed them
in the safe harbour of Whangpoo Creek, and stranded them on the mud
flats below Garden Bridge.

Being illiterate people, father and son, unskilled labour was all that
presented itself, so they becam