CHAPTER II


Ah Cum lived at No. 6 Chiu Ping le, Chiu Yam Street. He was a
Canton guide, highly educated, having been graduated from Yale
University. If he took a fancy to you, he invited you to the house
for tea, bitter and yellow and served in little cups without
handles. If you knew anything about Canton ware, you were, as like
as not, sorely tempted to stuff a teacup into your pocket.

He was tall, slender, and suave. He spoke English with astonishing
facility and with a purity which often embarrassed his tourists. He
made his headquarters at the Victoria on the Sha-mien, and
generally met the Hong-Kong packet in the morning. You left
Hong-Kong at night, by way of the Pearl River, and arrived in Canton
the next morning. Ah Cum presented his black-bordered card to such
individuals as seemed likely to require his services.

This morning his entourage (as he jestingly called it) consisted of
the girl, two spinsters (Prudence and Angelina Jedson), prim and
doubtful of the world, and the young man who appeared to be
considerably the worse for the alcohol he had consumed.

In the beginning Ah Cum would run his glance speculatively over the
assortment and select that individual who promised to be the most
companionable. He was a philosopher. Usually his charges bored him
with their interrogative chatter, for he knew that his information
more often than not went into one ear and out of the other. To-day
he selected the girl, and gave her the lead-chair. He motioned the