coolie knelt, and with a rag began to clean the boots, which, from the
expression of young Mr. Heywood's face, were more interesting than the
arrival of a new manager from Germany.

"It will be dark before we're in," he said. "My place for the night, of
course, and let your predecessor's leavings stand over till daylight.
After dinner we'll go to the club. Dinner! Chicken and rice, chicken and
rice! Better like it, though, for you'll eat nothing else, term of
your life."

"You are very kind," began Rudolph; but this bewildering off-hand
youngster cut him short, with a laugh:--

"No fear, you'll pay me! Your firm supplies unlimited liquor. Much good
that ever did us, with old Zimmerman."

The sampan now slipped rapidly on the full flood, up a narrow channel
that the setting of the sun had turned, as at a blow, from copper to
indigo. The shores passed, more and more obscure against a fading light.
A star or two already shone faint in the lower spaces. A second war-junk
loomed above them, with a ruddy fire in the stern lighting a glimpse of
squat forms and yellow goblin faces.

"It is very curious," said Rudolph, trying polite conversation, "how
they paint so the eyes on their jonks."

"No eyes, no can see; no can see, no can walkee," chanted Heywood in
careless formula. "I say," he complained suddenly, "you're not going to
'study the people,' and all that rot? We're already fed up with
missionaries. Their cant, I mean; no allusion to cannibalism."