crease of merriment; he began to shake his finger at the young man waggishly, and his throat already beginning to choke and squeak a little with his jest, he said:
“I s’ink lest night I see you with nice—” Something in the other’s manner cut him short; he stopped, his round foolish face grew wondering and solemn, and in a doubtful and inquiring tone, he said:
“You say—?”
“Listen, Wang: I’ve just got this telegram from home. My father is very sick—they think that he is dying. I’ve got to get money to go home at once. I need fifty dollars: can you let me have it?”
As Mr. Wang listened, his sparkling eyes grew dull as balls of tar, his round yellow moon of face grew curiously impassive. When the boy had finished, the Chinese thrust his hands into the wide flowered sleeves of his dressing gown, and then with a curious formal stiffness said:
“Will you come in? Please.”
The boy entered, and Mr. Wang, closing the door, turned, thrust his hand in his sleeves again, marched across the room to a magnificent teak-wood desk and opening a small drawer, took out a roll of bills, peeled off two twenties and a ten, and coming back to where his visitor was standing, presented the money to him with a stiff bow, and his round face still woodenly impassive, said again:
“Please.”
The young man seized the money and saying, “Thank you, Wang, I’ll send it to you as soon as I get home,” ran back to his room and began to hurl clothing, shirts, socks, toilet articles, into his valise as hard as he could. He had just finished when there was a tapping on the door and the Chinese appeared again. He marched into the room with the same ceremonious formality that had characterized his former conduct and bowing stiffly again, presented the boy with two magnificent fans of peacock feathers of which the lacquered blades were delicately and beautifully engraved.
And bowing stiffly again, and saying, “Please!” he turned and marched out of the room, his fat hands thrust into the wide sleeves of the flowered dressing gown.
Thirty minutes later he was on his way, leaving behind him, in the care of Mrs. Murphy, most of his belongings—the notebooks, letters, books, old shoes, worn-out clothes and battered hats, the thousands of pages of manuscript that represented the accretions of three years—that immense and nondescript collection of past events, foredone accomplishment,
