"Christian Sister"! You read it to find it's from her home pastor,
requesting just a little companionship for "a tender young soul who
is trying her wings for the first time in the big and beautiful
world"! I have a very private opinion about reading my title clear
to the Christian Sister business, but no woman with a heart as big
as a pinch of snuff could resist giving her very best and much more
to the slip of a winsome maid, who confidingly asks it--especially
if the sister has any knowledge of the shadows lurking in the
beautiful world.

Mate, these steamers as they sail from shore to shore are like
giant theaters. Every trip is an impromptu drama where comedy,
farce, and often startling tragedy offer large speaking parts. The
revelation of human nature in the original package is funny and
pathetic. Amusement is always on tap and life stories are just
hanging out of the port-hole waiting to attack your sympathy or
tickle your funny bone. But you 'd have to travel far to find the
beginning of a story so heaped up with romantic interest as that of
Sada San as she told it to me, one long, lazy afternoon as I lay on
the couch in my cabin, thanking my stars I was getting the best of
the bare tablecloth and the empty house at home.

Some twenty years ago Sada's father, an American, grew tired of the
slow life in a slow town and lent ear to the fairy stories told of
the Far East, where fortunes were made by looking wise for a few
moments every morning and devoting the rest of the day to samisens
and flutes. He found the glorious country of Japan. The beguiling
tea-houses, and softly swinging sampans were all too distracting.
They sang ambition to sleep and the fortune escaped.