I went away very sick and miserable, and as the door closed I saw the two drinking.
"Out and away better in 'Frisco," said the real "chippy" one. "But you see they are awfully nice--could pass for ladies any time they like. I tell you a man has to go round and keep his eyes open among them when he's seeing a little sporting life."
I have seen all that I wish to see, and henceforward I will pass. There may be better champagne and better drinkers in 'Frisco and elsewhere, but the talk will be the same, and the mouldiness and staleness of it all will be the same till the end of time. If this be Life, give me a little honest death, without drinks and without foul jesting. Anyway you look at it 'tis a poor performance, badly played, and too near to a tragedy to be pleasant. But it seems to amuse the young man wandering about the world, and I cannot believe that it is altogether good for him--unless, indeed, it makes him fonder of his home.
And mine was the greater sin! I was driven by no gust of passion, but went in cold blood to make my account of this Inferno, and to measure the measureless miseries of life. For the wholly insignificant sum of thirty dollars I had purchased information and disgust more than I required, and the right to look after a woman half crazed with drink and fear the third part of a terrible night. Mine was the greater sin.
When we stepped back into the world I was glad that the fog stood between myself and the heaven above.
SOME TALK WITH A TAIPAN AND A GENERAL; PROVES IN WHAT MANNER A SEA PICNIC MAY BE A SUCCESS.
"I should like to rise and go Where the golden apples grow, Where beneath another sky Parrot-islands anchored lie."
Hong-Kong was so much alive, so built, so lighted, and so bloatedly rich to all outward appearance that I wanted to know how these things came about. You can't lavish granite by the cubic ton for nothing, or rivet your cliffs with Portland cement, or build a five-mile bund, or establish a club like a small palace. I sought a _Taipan_, which means the head of an English trading firm. He was the biggest _Taipan_ on the island, and quite the nicest. He owned ships and wharves and houses and mines and a hundred other things. To him said I:--