"Oh, I don't know, either, but--well, I don't believe there's a braver man in Grant's army than that one a-straddle of my horse to-day! Why, just the way he got him, night before last,--you've heard that, have you not?"She joined in his mirth. A little later it was before she had the last word.The Clockwork man turned slowly and surveyed the prostrate figure. "A rudimentary race," he soliloquised, with his finger nosewards, "half blind, and painfully restricted in their movements. Evidently they have only a few sensesfive at the most." He passed out into the street, carefully avoiding the body.[Pg 103] "They have a certain freedom," he continued, still nursing his nose, "within narrow limits. But they soon grow limp. And when they fall down, or lose balance, they have no choice but to embrace the earth."
FORE:"But the great sights of Canton we have not yet mentioned. These are the streets, and they are by all odds the finest we have seen in the country. They are very narrow, few of them being more than six or eight feet wide, and some of them less than the former figure. Not a single wheeled carriage can move in all Canton, and the only mode of locomotion is by means of sedan-chairs. We had chairs every day with four bearers to each, and it was strange to see how fast the men would walk in the dense crowds without hitting any one. They kept calling out that they were coming, and somehow a way was always made for them. Several times, when we met other chairs, it was no easy matter to get by, and once we turned into a side street to allow a mandarin's chair to pass along. We did knock down some things from the fronts of stores, and several times the tops of our chairs hit against the perpendicular sign-boards that hung from the buildings. There are great numbers of signs, all of them perpendicular, and they are painted in very gaudy colors, so that the effect is brilliant. Sometimes, as you look ahead, the space between the two sides of the street is quite filled with these signs, so that you cannot see anything else.
ONE:Im getting spoiled here, he said, all you dear ladies of Bracebridge positively spoil me with your altar-cloths and our extra cups of tea. Im getting too comfortable. And heres Miss Alice with{103} a cigarette at my elbow. But I dont know whether its allowed. Have one with me, Miss Alice, and then your mother will have to scold us both, and I know shes too fond of you to scold you.[Pg 75]
TWO:"Yes, oh, yes! and that's why it isn't wrong to tell you. Charlotte's been three times through the lines, to and from the city; once by way of Natchez and twice through Baton Rouge. And oh, the things she's brought out to our poor boys in the hospitals!""Then all we have to do is to prove that the future is involved. Our lunatic must convince us that he is not of our age, that he has, in fact, and probably by mechanical means, found his way back to an age of flesh and blood. So far, we are agreed, for I willingly side with you in your opinion that the Clockwork man could not exist in the present; while I am open to be convinced[Pg 57] that he is a quite credible invention of the remote future."
While they were discussing him, he returned suddenly and said:The boys were rather surprised when they sat down to a dinner at which stewed oysters, green corn, and other things with which they were familiar at home were smoking before them; and Fred remarked that the Japanese cooking was not so unlike that of America, after all. Doctor Bronson smiled and said the cooking was done in America, and all that the Japanese cook had to do with the articles was to warm them up after opening the cans.The second day out the boys began to repeat all the poetry they could remember about the sea, and were surprised at the stock they had on hand. Fred recalled something he had read in Harper's Magazine, which ran as follows:Charles was no better next day, but merely obstinate, and went up to his work, as usual, with his sister. Keeling appeared shortly after, and, as usual, began the dictation. Now and then he gave sharp glances at Norah, and before long stopped in the middle of a letter."The Japanese performances," Doctor Bronson continued, "do not all begin in the morning, but the most of them do, and they last the entire day. In China they have historic plays that require a week or more for their complete representation; but in Japan they are briefer in their ways, and a performance is not continued from one day to the next. They have greater variety here than in China, and the plays are less tedious both to one who understands the language and to one who does not. The Japanese are a gayer people than the Chinese, and consequently their plays are less serious in character."
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