Each tin
that came from my food basket--one's servant delighted to lay out the
whole business--underwent the severest criticism tempered with unmeaning
eulogy, picked up and put down by perhaps a score of people, who did not
mean to be rude. When I used their chopsticks--dirty little pieces of
bamboo--in a manner very far removed from their natural method, they
were proud of me. Outrageously panegyric references were made when an
old man, scratching at his disagreeable itch-sores under my nose,
clipped a youngster's ear for hazarding my age to be less than that of
any of the bystanders, the length of my moustache and a three-day growth
on my chin giving them the opinion that I was certainly over sixty.[AG]
I entered Lao-ya-kwan under an inauspicious star. No accommodation was
to be had, all the inns were literally overrun with sedan chairs and
filled with well-dressed officials, already busy with the "hsi-lien"
(wash basin). In my dirty khaki clothes, out at knee and elbow, looking
musty and mean and dusty, with my topee botched and battered, I
presented a most unhappy contrast as I led my pony down the street under
the sarcastic stare of bystanding scrutineers. The nights were cold, and
in the private house where I stayed, mercifully overlooked by a trio of
protesting effigies with visages grotesque and gruesome, rats ran
fearlessly over the room's mud floor, and at night I buried my head in
my rugs to prevent total disappearance of my ears by nibbling.
Pages:
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309