his passenger!

From various indications, it is surmised, as I seek my couch, that the
city opposite is Chao-choo-foo. Inquiry to that effect, as usual, elicits
nothing but a bland grin from Yung Po. When, however, he takes the
unnecessary precaution of warning me not to venture outside the covered
sleeping quarters during the night, intimating that I should probably get
stabbed if I do, I am pretty well satisfied of our arrival. This cautious
proceeding is to be explained by the fact that I am Yung Po's debtor for
two days' diet of rice, turnips, and flabby pork, and he is suspicious
that I might creep forth in the silence and darkness of the night and
leave him in the lurch.

Yung Po now summons his entire pantomimic ability, to inform me that
Chao-choo-foo is still some distance up the river, at all events that is
my interpretation of his words and gestures. On this supposition I enter
no objections when he bids me accompany him to the market and purchase a
new supply of provisions for the remainder of the journey.

Impatient to proceed to Chao-choo-foo I now motion for them to make a
start. Yung Po points to the frowning walls of the city we have just
visited, and blandly says, "Chao-choo-foo." Having accomplished his
purpose of bamboozling me into replenishing his larder, by making me
believe our destination is yet farther upstream, he now turns round and
tells me that we have already arrived. The neat little advantage he has
just been taking of my ignorance with such brilliant results to the
larder of the boat, has visibly stimulated his cupidity, and he now
brazenly demands the payment of filthy lucre, making a circular hole with
his thumb and finger to intimate big rounds in contradistinction to mere
tsin.

The assumption of dense ignorance has not been without its advantages at
various times on my journey around the world, and regarding Yung Po's
gestures with a blankety blank stare, I order him to proceed up stream to
Chao-choo-foo. The result of my refusal to be further bamboozled by the
wily Yung Po, without knowing something of what I am doing, is that I am
shortly threading the mazy alleyways of Chao-choo-foo with Ah Sum and
Yung Po for escort. What the object of this visit may be I haven't the
remotest idea, unless we are proceeding to the quarters of some official
to have my passport seen to, or to try and enlighten my understanding in
regard to Yung Po's claims for battered Mexican dollars.

Vague