. The
Chinaman's a born merchant and full of backbone. I like him for business
purposes. The Jap's no use. He isn't man enough to handle a hundred
thousand dollars. Very possibly he'd run off with it--or try to."

"The Jap has no business savvy. God knows I hate the Chinamen," said a
bass voice behind the tobacco smoke, "but you can do business with him.
The Jap's a little huckster who can't see beyond his nose."

They called for drinks and told tales, these merchants of China,--tales
of money and bales and boxes,--but through all their stories there was
an implied leaning upon native help which, even allowing for the
peculiarities of China, was rather startling. "The compradore did this:
Ho Whang did that: a syndicate of Pekin bankers did the other
thing"--and so on. I wondered whether a certain lordly indifference as
to details had anything to do with eccentricities in the China
tea-breaks and fluctuations of quality, which do occur in spite of all
the men said to the contrary. Again, the merchants spoke of China as a
place where fortunes are made--a land only waiting to be opened up to
pay a hundredfold. They told me of the Home Government helping private
trade, in kind and unobtrusive ways, to get a firmer hold on the Public
Works Department contracts that are now flying abroad. This was
pleasant hearing. But the strangest thing of all was the tone of hope
and almost contentment that pervaded their speech. They were well-to-do
men making money, and they liked their lives. You know how, when two or
three of Us are gathered together in our own barren pauper land, we
groan in chorus and are disconsolate. The civilian, the military man,
and the merchant, they are all alike. The one overworked and broken by
exchange, the second a highly organised beggar, and the third a nobody
in particular, always at loggerheads with what he considers an
academical Government. I knew in a way that We were a grim and miserable
community in India, but I did not know the measure of Our fall till I
heard men talking about fortunes, success, money, and the pleasure, good
living, and frequent trips to England that money brings. Their friends
did not seem to die with unnatural swiftness, and their wealth enabled
them to endure the calamity of Exchange with calm. Yes, we of India are
a wretched folk.

Very early in the dawn, before the nesting sparrows were awake, there
was a sound in the air which frightened me out of my virtuous sleep. It