The Girl from Hong-Kong: A Story of Adventure Under Five Suns — page 16: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

10 THE. GIRL. FROM ON G- HONG. A figure gliding op behind the Londoner touches higa on the arm, whereat. ‘Terry instantly wheels, for such a thing is uncommon here where men avoid personal con- tact for fear of losing caste. . ““Ah! Pekoe ‘Fay, at last,” he says quietly, and yet with a. suppressed eagerness in his veice._- . The party he addresses. is a Chinaman—not even a second look’ is needed te confirm. that faet; although he does not wear the regulation dress of his race, his slant eyes and yellow skin, the long, delicately trimmed nails on his hands and the curled pigtail that. peene-ont from under his straw hat give the whole thing away. Pekoe Tay is no ordinary Celestial of the type whose advent among the gold-diggers of California *49ers Bret Harte made famous in his legends of the Heathen Chinee. Pekoe Tay has traveled, and rabbed elbows with the people of four continents—hailing from the British colony of Hong-Kong he has by degrees developed inte a cosmopolitan, and his language appears equally as elegant as the ordinary French savant wrestling with the intricate’ verbs. and nouns of Engtish; only on rare occasions does Pekoe Tay drop: mto the pigeon English so natural to his race. This fellow can look as sober as a judge when pro- nouncing the death sentence, and yet perpetrate a most comicbooks.com