take the place of carts?"
You shrug and smile.
"Eighteen coppers. Something less than eight cents
in your money. They are not badly paid. They
do not die."

Again I ask:
"And is it true that you've a Yâmen, a police judge,
all your own?"
Another shrug and smile.
"Yes, he attends to all small cases of disorder. For
larger crimes we pass the offender over to the
city courts."

* * * * *

"Conditions" you explain as we sit later with a cup
of tea, "conditions here are difficult."
Your figure has grown lax, your voice a little weary.
You are fighting, I can see, upheld by that strange
graft of western energy.
Yet odds are heavy, and the Orient is in your blood.
Your voice is weary.
"There are no skilled laborers" you say, "Among
the owners no coöperation.
It is like--like working in a nightmare, here in China.
It drags at me, it drags"....
You bow me out with great civility.
The furnaces, the great steel furnaces, tremble and
glow, gigantic machinery clanks and in living