Had I
been scheming out celestial hieroglyphics their mouths could not have
opened wider. As I write now I am asked by a respectable person how many
ounces of silver a Johann Faber's B.B. costs. I have told him, and he
has retired smiling, evidently thinking that I am romancing.
That I impress the crowd everywhere is evident. But with all their
questioning, they are rarely rude; their stare is simply the stare of
little children seeing a thing for the first time in their lives. It is
all so hard to understand. My silver and my gold they solicit not; they
merely desire to see me and to feel me. A certain faction of the crowd,
however, do solicit my silver.
Lao Chang has been buying vegetables, and has brought all the vegetable
gardeners and greengrocers around me. The poultry rearers are here too,
and the forage dealers and the grass cutters and the basket makers, and
other thrifty members of the commercial order of Ch'u-tung humankind.
When I came away the people dropped into line and strained their necks
to get a parting smile. I was sped on my way with a public curiosity as
if I were a penal servitor released from prison, a general home from a
war, or something of that kind.
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