When I went to my room, I found that a nice little Chinese girl in a
long sack coat and shiny black trousers was to share it with me. I
must confess that I was relieved for I was lonesome and a bit nervous,
and when I discovered that she knew a little English I could have
hugged her. We spread our cold supper on the top of my dress suit
case, put our one candle in the center, and proceeded to feast. Little
Miss Izy was not as shy as she looked, and what she lacked in
vocabulary she made up in enthusiasm. We got into a gale of laughter
over our efforts to understand each other, and she was as curious
about my costume as I was about hers. She watched me undress with
unfeigned amusement, following the lengthy process carefully, then she
rose, untied a string, stepped out of her coat and trousers, stood for
a moment in a white suit made exactly like her outer garments, then
gaily kicked off her tiny slippers and rolled over in bed. I don't
know if this is a universal custom in China, but at any rate, little
Miss Izy will never be like the old lady, who committed suicide
because she was so tired of buttoning and unbuttoning.

The next morning we were in Soochow, at least outside of the city
wall. They say the wall is over two thousand years old and it
certainly looks it, and the spaces on top left for the guns to point
through make it look as if it had lost most of its teeth. Things are
so old in this place, Mate, that I feel as if I had just been born! I
have nearly ran my legs off sightseeing; big pagodas and little
pagodas, Mamma Buddhas and Papa Buddhas, and baby Buddhas, all of whom
look exactly like their first cousins in Japan.

Soochow is just a collection of narrow alley-ways over which the house
tops meet, and through which the people swarm by the millions, sellers