A Yankee in the Far East Part 13

Tell a Singapore official to his face that you are going to shake the town! A Yankee at that, and from Hong Kong to boot!

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ye G.o.ds! Tell a Singapore official to his face that you are going to shake the town!]

A Singapore Englishman feels about Hong Kong, even when not infected, as a St. Paul man used to feel about Minneapolis before Minneapolis put it out of the running.

That Rangoon steamer was due to sail at 5 P. M. this very day, or I wouldn't have dared.

A laugh went down the line of crushed candidates for landing at the heavenly port of Singapore, which helped me to bear the jove-like frown of the official--it helped a lot. It egged me on to further deeds of daring; for when he handed me a duplicate of the undertaking I had signed, to remind me of what I was up against if I didn't report to him at 3 sharp the following day, if I was still in town, with the remark: "Right-o, see that you report at the health office daily at 3 P. M. every day you're in town after today"--with my eye on that ship for Rangoon I came back with: "Right-o, if I don't shake Singapore today you'll find me on the stoop of your office daily at 2:59, so you can feel my pulse and look at my tongue. But, oh man, my only object in coming to Singapore at all is to get out of it. Wouldn't have come to Singapore if there had been a way around it. I don't like Singapore. I think it a measly town. I like Hong Kong. Hong Kong is a nice town. It's got Singapore beaten forty ways"--and it made a hit with the crowd, and I swelled out my chest and swaggered away, and thought I was _funny_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: I swelled out my chest and swaggered away and thought I was _funny_]

Now word has just come to me that my ship won't sail today. Owing to unforeseen delays, she won't sail till tomorrow at 5 P. M., and it's the ship's delay, and "the haughtiness of office" for me. I feel just like the melancholy Dane in his famous soliloquy.

I'm in the same fix another fellow was, who thought _he_ would be funny. He was standing on the rear platform of a train that was just pulling out from a town in Illinois, noted for its blood-thirsty, sc.r.a.ppy natives. The train was getting under good headway when this "humorist" thought it would be funny to shake his fist at one of the natives standing along the line, a great big especially vicious-looking citizen, and to promise him one good thrashing the next time he (the humorist) came that way.

Just then the train stopped and backed down to the station onto a siding.

With a blood-curdling whoop that native jumped aboard the train.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The "funny man" gently lifted the derby from the dozing pa.s.senger's head and set his own sombrero in its place]

The humorist, who was wearing a wide-brimmed, conspicuous sombrero, ducked into the car, and espying an English tourist dozing and wearing a modest little derby, the "funny man" gently lifted the derby from the dozing pa.s.senger's head and set his own sombrero in its place, and sat down two seats back and was nonchalantly looking out of the window as the native raged into the car looking for blood and that fellow with a hat.

There was no mistaking the hat; he spotted his man and was going to eat him alive.

The poor bewildered English tourist didn't know what it was all about.

But that didn't go--nothing but blood would answer. It was looking dark for the bewildered Englishman when the rear platform orator stepped up and pacified the native by telling him that the gentleman didn't mean anything--that he wasn't quite right in his _head_, and in that way blood was averted.

The native got off; the train pulled out, this time for good. After it was fully forty miles from that station, and going sixty miles an hour, the owner of the sombrero stepped across the aisle, and, addressing the bewildered pa.s.senger, said: "Excuse me, sir, but I believe you are wearing my hat." B. p. reached for the hat on his head, saw it wasn't his (it was an afternoon of surprises), and handed it to the rightful owner, and, as he was a perfect gentleman, he thanked the man again for his presence of mind in saving him from a beating up. The rear platform humorist, orator, funny man, begged him not to mention it, and the incident was closed.

The funny man left the train at Milwaukee at supper time. The bewildered pa.s.senger stayed on and sat all night in a brown study--seemed to be trying to solve something. He reached St. Paul in the morning at sun-up, and with the coming of a new day, light dawned and he jumped up, shook his fist in the direction of Milwaukee, and said: "And domned if I didn't thank him twice, when I should 'ave punched his 'ead!"

Well, it's 7 P. M. I should have been two hours on my way to Rangoon.

I'll drop this letter in the mail to catch the P. & O. going west, eat my dinner, and retire and get a good night's sleep; and after breakfast tomorrow I'll think till 2:59 P. M. There's no use worrying, for if worry gets you going it will keep you on the run. No matter what the hole you're in, there is a deeper one. I'll get up in the morning and I'll think, and think, and think how I can put that dread official on the blink, blink, blink. But a Singapore official, oh, he's a mighty gun, and this Singapore official he weighs about a ton--I guess. Still, I will not worry, but then, for all of that, I wish that _I'd_ been wearing a great big sombrero hat.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "And domned if I didn't thank him twice when I should 'ave punched his 'ead"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: No matter what the hole you're in, there is a deeper one]

XIX

THE HINDU GUIDE A SAINT WOULD BE

Last evening I wrote you about my perturbed state of mind regarding quarantine here in Singapore.

After _chota hazri_ this morning I thought for a couple of hours, then ate breakfast, after which I met a Hindu in my hotel (there are thirty thousand Indians in Singapore), who looked at me as if he were desirous of opening a conversation.

I stopped, saluted, and said to him: "Did you wish to speak to me?"

"Only to ask you if you wanted a guide for Singapore today. I can show you all the sights of Singapore and explain them to you in understandable English."

"By jove!" I exclaimed. "I believe you can. You speak English like an educated Englishman. What do you want for your day's services? You look like ---- ----." I named an eminent American statesman, and he did look like him, too, except for color. I asked the guide if he knew of this statesman of whom he reminded me.

He said he didn't.

"Well," I said, "he is one of the most brilliant men on earth today."

The fellow smiled and showed a splendid set of teeth--a Hindu guide is susceptible to compliments.

"How much do you want for your day's services?" I again asked him.

"Three dollars."

"I'll give you a dollar and a half," I said.

"Pay me anything you like and then you'll pay me more than I am worthy of," he said.

We started off in a gharry, and he surely was a character.

Keen, bright, the most interesting guide I've ever struck--a Hindu.

We talked Hinduism till twelve o'clock, riding around Singapore; and if you think foreign missionaries aren't up against it in their job of converting India from Hinduism, or Brahmanism, you can think again.

He was a great solace to me.

"There are," he told me, "four great tenets to Hinduism:

"First--Don't question the mysteries. No one can solve them.

"Second--Don't worry about the future. No one knows what it has in store."

He frankly told me that the other two had slipped his memory, but he had cinched those two.

With me, number two was enough for today, with my job of thinking on hand.

That guide was a wonder. He was intelligent. There is not one Christian in ten thousand who could give a better argument for his faith than that guide gave me for his faith. He was about as refreshing a character as I have ever met.

He took me through a Hindu temple and laughed at Christians'

"ignorance" in condemning the Hindus' idols. Hindus didn't worship the idols; but the Great Being the idols were to remind the worshiper of; they were only links between the worshipers and the Great Being.

He expects to be born over again and to answer in his new existence for the sins he has committed in this life; and the great end to be striven for, is to fly off into nothing and n.o.body.

"Why," I said, "that's Buddhism."