A Yankee in the Far East Part 10

"Fine," "Missouri" said. "Good town--lot of go."

"Had any rides on these Shanghai wheelbarrows?"

"Missouri" only grinned and didn't go off into wild, exuberant enthusiasm, by which token I knew there must be something the matter with "Missouri."

[Ill.u.s.tration: There _are_ some Americans whom even a Shanghai wheelbarrow don't particularly interest]

There _are_ some Americans whom even a Shanghai wheelbarrow don't particularly interest. But there are some Americans who can't see anything particularly interesting in lots of things; who go mooning along through life; who, if you told them the moon was made of green cheese, would get into an argument with you on the subject and tell you there must be some mistake about it. But from what I'd seen of "Missouri" I didn't put him down for that kind of an American; and I knew there must have something gone wrong with him or else he'd have warmed up over the wheelbarrows in Shanghai.

"Business b.u.m, 'Missouri'?" I asked.

"Nope," said "Missouri." "Done better than I expected to."

"What's the matter, 'Missouri'?" I asked. "Your false teeth aren't aching are they? You seem to lack enthusiasm. Anything gone wrong since I saw you last? Bad news from home? Long on mules and the bottom dropped out of the market? Has the treasurer of the Epworth League at home run off with the funds, or has your bank cas.h.i.+er run off with your safe?"

"Say, Mr. Allen, the bank's all right. Mules and horses are O. K.

Everything is lovely so far as the outcome of my trip is concerned in a business way.

"But that Epworth League is no joke. You see, my town is looking for me to bring home a report on the missionary game out here in the Far East.

"As I've told you, I'm a fairly good proposition where I live--an easy mark when it comes to digging down and boosting anything worth boosting.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Women who are interested in foreign missions and preachers in our town set quite a store by me"]

"Women who are interested in foreign missions and the preachers in our town set quite a store by me, and I was given that commission to look up the missionary in Tokio and report on his work, and you know all about how I came out on that enterprise.

"I got tied up in j.a.pan, so I didn't go to look his field over--thought I wouldn't have any trouble to get next to missionaries out here, and when you told me how you came out with that missionary in Kioto, I thought it would be a cinch to take back a report from some of these posts.

"Say, Mr. Allen, I'm never going to get funny again as long as I live, if I ever have anything more to do with the 'cloth.'

"After you left me to run up to Pekin I got things shaped around here in Shanghai where I could spare a day, so I looked up the missionaries in the city directory, and by a little inquiry, located one who was said to be a hot tomolie in his line. Didn't have a letter of introduction to him, but banked on my general appearance to carry me through.

"I found my man and told him where I was from. I noticed he was a solemn-looking individual. I lit into him in a more or less free-and-easy way, and that's where I got in bad with that particular dispenser of the gospel to the heathen.

"I told him that I was a business man and that I wanted to learn something of the missionary work to tell about it when I got home.

"From what you'd told me of your experience in Kioto, I rather expected he would enthuse somewhat.

"But he didn't enthuse.

"He made a diamond of the index fingers and thumbs of his hands, held them in front of him, and waited for me to proceed. I looked at him--I looked at him twice. And then I told him of my effort in Tokio.

"I said: 'I started out to do this thing in Tokio; started one Sunday morning, but got tied up in a saki house, where I met a delightful bunch, and didn't get away from that saloon till five o'clock in the afternoon, and I have yet to come in personal contact with the missionary work in the Far East.'

"I meant to say something that would jar his hands out of the position they were in, but it didn't work that way.

"He kept them held just so, and his mouth took on something of the same shape. For about a minute as I looked at what was in front of me I couldn't think of anything but the two of diamonds. Between you and me, that missionary is a two-spot, all right.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "For about a minute, as I looked at what was in front of me, I couldn't think of anything but the two of diamonds"]

"Then I elaborately explained about the automobile breaking down in front of the saki house, and how the keepers of the saki house had befriended us, but the whole story didn't warm him up.

"I discoursed along and tried to overcome the bad impression I had made. I did my level best to make that chap see that while I didn't have any letter of introduction, that it might be well to consider strangers, because we've Holy Writ for it that by so doing a good many have caught angels unawares.

"But that fellow couldn't see any angel in me. He acted as if I had hoofs and horns.

"I was having the time of my life to get through that missionary's crust. I did enough mental and 'charming personality' work to sell a trainload of mules to a business man.

"It was a one-sided confab, but I didn't propose to give it up. I said to myself: 'I've pulled over harder deals in my life than mellowing up and bringing this missionary around.' I went along careful like, discoursing and discussing (if one man doing all the talking could be called discussing)--I'd cash a stranger's check at our bank on half as good a showing as I was making--and I rather thought I was getting by.

"He had shut his mouth, and while he held his hands in that same position, with his mouth shut, he didn't remind me so much of a two-spot. He looked more like an ace, and I thought I was winning.

"And then I let go one that gave him the opening he'd evidently been waiting for. I told him that I hadn't found the cordial relations existing between the business men of the Orient and the missionary cause I had expected I would find--and then he said something. What do you think that missionary said to me, Mr. Allen?"

"I haven't an idea, 'Missouri'. What did he say?"

"Humph!" snorted 'Missouri'. "He said: 'You have probably gathered your information of the missionary work in the Far East from your bar-room a.s.sociates'."

I laughed. "Hard luck, 'Missouri'. Did you tell him about the funnel and anaesthetic?"

"I did not," disgustedly. "I left him encased in his armor plate of self-righteousness."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Humph!" snorted "Missouri," "he said, 'You've probably gathered your information of the missionary work in the Far East from your bar-room a.s.sociates'"]

"Oh, forget it, 'Missouri'," I said. "The missionary work is a tremendous undertaking. There are thousands of missionaries scattered over the world. You can't pick out thousands of men for any great work, in religion, business, politics, or war, without occasionally drafting one whom the French so graphically describe as '_damphol_.'

That particular missionary has evidently missed his calling."

"Um," "Missouri" pondered meditatively. "Just what sort of a calling would fit that kind of a man? I wouldn't undertake to make a banker of him. I wouldn't trust him with a big mule deal. He'd scare trade away from a country store"--

"Forget it, 'Missouri.' Let's take a wheelbarrow ride and you can use my Kioto experience when you get home--just tell it to your good people as if it had happened to you. Or, if you have time when you get to Canton, go and call on my friend S----.

"He is a missionary. I won't let him know that you are coming to see him, and I won't give you a letter of introduction to him--you won't need a letter.

"Go at him just as you did at your 'two-spot'--you won't fool him--he'll see back of it. You wouldn't have fooled me in Yokohama if you'd declaimed it instead of writing it to me. You're something of a josher, 'Missouri,' but you don't exactly impress even the ordinary run as a gleaner of your views from bar-room a.s.sociates.

[Ill.u.s.tration: As we jounced along over the bridge in front of our hotel on a Shanghai wheelbarrow]

"S---- would have made a whale of a business man if he hadn't given his life to missions. He's a whale of a business man as it is. I misjudge him, and I misjudge you, if he don't work you for a contribution to foreign missions that will make the Board in New York throw up their hats when they hear of it, and show you a story to take back home that will make the tight-wads in your community loosen up when the hat is pa.s.sed around for foreign missions."

As we jounced along over the bridge in front of our hotel and along the bund on a Shanghai wheelbarrow, pa.s.sing mixed cargoes of merchandise and pa.s.sengers on those same homely vehicles, and as I explained to "Missouri" how those were only _little_ loads, how up north they piled on more and more and then rigged them up with sails, the absolute ludicrousness of it all made "Missouri" forget his grouch, and he promised me that he'd try to look up S---- in Canton--and I thought I saw where Missouri mules might be hitched to Foreign Missions--and that's some motive power.

XV

A STO-O-RM AT SEA