If on the
road a man wants to light his pipe, he walks into a home and gets it
from the fire. No one minds. No notice is taken of the intrusion.
Everybody is polite, and the man may not utter a word. At a wayside
food-shop a man may go behind to where the cooking is being conducted,
poke his pipe into the embers, and walk out pulling at it, all as
naturally as if that man were in his own house. An Englishman would have
a rough time of it if he had to go down on his hands and knees and pull
away at a pipe from a fire on the floor.
No father, no mother, no elder brother had the little girl in charge.
She was left without friends entirely, and a man must have been a hard
man indeed were he to steel his heart against such a helpless little
one. I called her to me, gave her a little present, and comforted her as
she cried for the very knowledge that an Englishman would do a kind act
to a little waif such as herself. She was in the act of giving back the
money to me, when Lao Chang, with pleasant aptitude, interposed,
explained that foreigners occasionally develop generous moods, and that
she had better stop crying and lock the money away. She did this, but
the poor little mite nearly broke her heart.
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