Adventure, December 3, 1920 — page 122: what you’re looking at

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

II2 current and pushing little rings of water before her with her whiskers. The beady eyes shone and the black nose wiggled, but after a moment she disappeared. Tong waited with the Chinese patience born of generations of dull submission. Minutes passed, a quarter of an hour—then a sharp jerk at the line. Tong drew it in swiftly hand over hand while the rat bit and clawed with such fierceness that, had it equaled a dog in size, it would have been more formidable than a lion. But Tong with- out excitement seized a split bamboo and, pin- ning the rat by the neck, released it from the trap. : He then leisurely slew and skinned it, the thought of the coming feast causing the water to run in his mouth, for well he knew that a fat water-rat slowly roasted over a charcoal fire furnished a luscious dish. And then it was meat. Months had passed since Tong had tasted that luxury. Occasionally indeed a dead dog floated bump- ingly against the alge-covered sides of the sampan. ‘That was always a red-letter day, provided the dog had not drifted about all too long; and Tong never failed to invite his two friends, the rice-cook and the porter, as well as the owner of the sampan, not that he loved the latter, but to propitiate the surly temper of the fat Tiger, who looked with a jealous eye on Tong’s trapping and fishing. For a day or two the old man was soothed and docile, but then the luscious feast was forgotten, and Tong carefully circumnavigated him in wide curves. Had the fat Tiger been able to carry out his will he assuredly would have driven him from the sampan—but there was the hitch, for Tong had a hard-and-fast lease for ninety-nine years of the little back cabin, scarcely eight feet by four, and the rent was paid in advance to the very end. And where had Tong acquired such unheard- of wealth? He had once for a short period been the servant of a White Devil, had waited on him, run his errands and shaved him. He still thought ‘in bitter moments of that shameless white throat, lean and long, with the knobby Adam’s apple that slid up and down without apparent cause. Had he only felt then as he did now the deft razor might by a sharp twist have done swift execution; and a pleasing shudder passed through his frame as he pictured the red blood squirting forth over the white napkin. But at that time hatred had not yet entered his heart. One day when his master was absent he had taken a golden scarf-pin to the street door to show his friend the rice-cook; only to show it, not to steal it. It represented a little horse with diamond eyes and appeared a miracle to his inexperienced mind. ~ Adventure Just at that moment his master returned from a canter and, catching him in the very act, fell upon him mercilessly with his riding-whip, striking him again and again over his face and shoulders. Tong dropped the fatal scarf-pin and fled in terror. He sat brooding all day among some lumber by the riverside, smarting still under the lashes, his left eye inflamed and burning, but at night he crept silently to his room over the stable and, seizing his few belongings and accumulated wages carefully secreted in his mattress, stole softly away never to return. Since then he had lived on the sampan. His eye grew worse and worse, causing him ex- cruciating agony, and finally when the pain decreased the sight was gone. That was how- ever not of so great consequence, for he still had his right eye, and that became large and luminous and quite lighted up his otherwise homely and expressionless face. And then Tong had a great consolation, for had he not a home? How many thousands— yea, millions—of his fellow countrymen had no place to rest their weary heads save where chance might direct! And the home was safe and he could laugh in glee at the fat Tiger when the latter spat contemptuously as he passed, for his lease, written in red and black characters on a narrow strip of rice-paper, lay with many similar documents under a huge porcelain slab in the Temple of the Seven Winds and the great Buddha guarded it in person with eyes fixed perpetually thereon. When not engaged in trapping water-rats or fishing for little yellow eels which fed on the refuse of ‘the river, Tong usually spent the day sauntering along its banks watching the junks and sampans slipping down with the muddy cur- ‘rent and, like Mr. Micawber, of whom he had never heard, waiting for something to turn up. Occasionally the yellow-gray monotony was broken by a monstrous fireship of the White Devils, decked with flags and streamers, that cast out volumes of black smoke and churned the water with its paddles till every sampan for ° half a mile bumped and ground its neighbor. When it had passed on ruthlessly, leaving a wake like a dragon’s tail streaked with bubbling foam, the discolored rollers roared along the shore eating into the clay banks and turning everything within reach topsy-turvy. Tong stared with an evil eye at the re- treating monster and thought of the many white throats on board, male and female, while his fingers itched to wield his razor among them. THE days of Tong’s life were very similar. It never occurred to him to have desires or wishes but of the most elementary sort, his narrow subconsciousness having just room for eating, drinking and sleep- ing. In all else he melted into the vast mass of COMIC OO KS (E@) . PEF LD state Pare a