CHAPTER II 10
CHAPTER III 25
CHAPTER IV 37
CHAPTER V 52
CHAPTER VI 59
CHAPTER VII 77
CHAPTER VIII 90
CHAPTER IX 101
CHAPTER X 109
CHAPTER XI 124
CHAPTER XII 132
CHAPTER XIII 143
CHAPTER XIV 155
CHAPTER XV 170
CHAPTER XVI 180
CHAPTER XVII 194
CHAPTER XVIII 202
CHAPTER XIX 219
CHAPTER XX 239
CHAPTER XXI 248
CHAPTER XXII 264
CHAPTER XXIII 274
CHAPTER XXIV 288
CHAPTER XXV 299
A CHICAGO PRINCESS
A CHICAGO
PRINCESS
By ROBERT BARR
Author of “Over the Border,” “The Victors,” “Tekla,”
“In the Midst of Alarms,” “A Woman Intervenes,” etc.
Illustrated by FRANCIS P. WIGHTMAN
[Illustration]
New York · FREDERICK A.
STOKES COMPANY · Publishers
_Copyright, 1904, by_
ROBERT BARR
_All rights reserved_
This edition published in June, 1904
A CHICAGO PRINCESS
CHAPTER I
When I look back upon a certain hour of my life it fills me with wonder
that I should have been so peacefully happy. Strange as it may seem,
utter despair is not without its alloy of joy. The man who daintily
picks his way along a muddy street is anxious lest he soil his polished
boots, or turns up his coat collar to save himself from the shower that
is beginning, eager then to find a shelter; but let him inadvertently
step into a pool, plunging head over ears into foul water, and after
that he has no more anxiety. Nothing that weather can inflict will add
to his misery, and consequently a ray of happiness illumines his gloomy
horizon. He has reached the limit; Fate can do no more; and there is
a satisfaction in attaining the ultimate of things. So it was with me
that beautiful day; I had attained my last phase.
I was living in the cheapest of all paper houses, living as the
Japanese themselves do, on a handful of rice, and learning by
experience how very little it requires to keep body and soul together.
But now, when I had my next meal of rice, it would be at the expense
of my Japanese host, who was already beginning to suspect,--so it
seemed to me,--that I might be unable to liquidate whatever debt I
incurred. He was very polite about it, but in his twinkling little
eyes there lurked suspicion. I have travelled the whole world over,
especially the East, and I find it the same everywhere. When a man
comes down to his final penny, some subtle change in his deportment
seems to make the whole world aware of it. But then, again, this
supposed knowledge on the part of the world may have existed only in my
own imagination, as the Christian Scientists tell us every ill resides
in the mind. Perhaps, after all, my little bowing landlord was not
troubling himself about the payment of the bill, and I only fancied him
uneasy.
If an untravelled person, a lover of beauty, were sitting in my place
on that little elevated veranda, it is possible the superb view spread
out before him might account for serenity in circumstances which to
the ordinary individual would be most depressing. But the view was an
old companion of mine; goodness knows I had looked at it often enough
when I climbed that weary hill and gazed upon the town below me, and
the magnificent harbor of Nagasaki spreading beyond. The water was
intensely blue, dotted with shipping of all nations, from the stately
men-of-war to the ocean tramps and the little coasting schooners. It
was an ever-changing, animated scene; but really I had had enough of it
during all those ineffective months of struggle in the attempt to earn
even the rice and the poor lodging which I enjoyed.
[Illustration: “The twinkling eyes of the Emperor fixed themselves on
Miss Hemster.”
_Page 144_
]
Curiously, it was not of this harbor I was thinking, but of another in
far-distant Europe, that of Boulogne in the north of France, where I
spent a day with my own yacht before I sailed for America. And it was a
comical thought that brought the harbor of Boulogne to my mind. I had
seen a street car there, labelled “Le Dernier Sou,” which I translated
as meaning “The Last Cent.” I never took a trip on this street car,
but I presume somewhere in the outskirts of Boulogne there is a suburb
named “The Last Cent,” and I thought now with a laugh: “Here I am in
Japan, and although I did not take that street car, yet I have arrived
at ‘Le Dernier Sou.’”
This morning I had not gone down to the harbor to prosecute my search
for employment. As with my last cent, I had apparently given that idea
up. There was no employer needing men to whom I had not applied time
and again, willing to take the laborer’s wage for the laborer’s work.
But all my earlier training had been by way of making me a gentleman,
and the manner was still upon me in spite of my endeavors to shake it
off, and I had discovered that business men do not wish gentlemen as
day-laborers. There was every reason that I should be deeply depressed;
yet, strange to say, I was not. Had I at last reached the lotus-eating
content of the vagabond? Was this care-free condition the serenity of
the tramp? Would my next step downward be the unblushing begging of
food, with the confidence that if I were refused at one place I should
receive at another? With later knowledge, looking back at that moment
of mitigated happiness, I am forced to believe that it was the effect
of coming events casting their shadows before. Some occultists tell us
that every action that takes place on the earth, no matter how secretly
done, leaves its impression on some ethereal atmosphere, visible to
a clairvoyant, who can see and describe to us exactly what has taken
place. If this be true, it is possible that our future experiences may
give sub-mental warnings of their approach.
As I sat there in the warm sunlight and looked over the crowded harbor,
I thought of the phrase, “When my ship comes in.” There was shipping
enough in the bay, and possibly, if I could but have known where,
some friend of mine might at that moment be tramping a white deck,
or sitting in a steamer chair, looking up at terrace upon terrace of
the toy houses among which I kept my residence. Perhaps my ship had
come in already if only I knew which were she. As I lay back on the
light bamboo chair, along which I had thrown myself,--a lounging,
easy, half-reclining affair like those we used to have at college,--I
gazed upon the lower town and harbor, taking in the vast blue surface
of the bay; and there along the indigo expanse of the waters, in
striking contrast to them, floated a brilliantly white ship gradually,
imperceptibly approaching. The canvas, spread wing and wing, as it
increased in size, gave it the appearance of a swan swimming toward me,
and I thought lazily:
“It is like a dove coming to tell me that my deluge of misery is past,
and there is an olive-branch of foam in its beak.”
As the whole ship became visible I saw that it, like the canvas,
was pure white, and at first I took it for a large sailing yacht
rapidly making Nagasaki before the gentle breeze that was blowing;
but as she drew near I saw that she was a steamer, whose trim lines,
despite her size, were somewhat unusual in these waters. If this were
indeed a yacht she must be owned by some man of great wealth, for
she undoubtedly cost a fortune to build and a very large income to
maintain. As she approached the more crowded part of the bay, her sails
were lowered and she came slowly in on her own momentum. I fancied I
heard the rattle of the chain as her anchor plunged into the water, and
now I noticed with a thrill that made me sit up in my lounging chair
that the flag which flew at her stern was the Stars and Stripes. It
is true that I had little cause to be grateful to the country which
this piece of bunting represented, for had it not looted me of all I
possessed? Nevertheless in those distant regions an Englishman regards
the United States flag somewhat differently from that of any nation
save his own. Perhaps there is an unconscious feeling of kinship;
perhaps the similarity of language may account for it, because an
Englishman understands American better than any other foreign tongue.
Be that as it may, the listlessness departed from me as I gazed upon
that banner, as crude and gaudy as our own, displaying the most
striking of the primary colors. The yacht rested on the blue waters
as gracefully as if she were a large white waterfowl, and I saw the
sampans swarm around her like a fluffy brood of ducklings.
And now I became conscious that the most polite individual in the
world was making an effort to secure my attention, yet striving to
accomplish his purpose in the most unobtrusive way. My patient and
respected landlord, Yansan, was making deep obeisances before me, and
he held in his hand a roll which I strongly suspected to be my overdue
bill. I had the merit in Yansan’s eyes of being able to converse with
him in his own language, and the further advantage to myself of being
able to read it; therefore he bestowed upon me a respect which he did
not accord to all Europeans.
“Ah, Yansan!” I cried to him, taking the bull by the horns, “I was
just thinking of you. I wish you would be more prompt in presenting
your account. By such delay errors creep into it which I am unable to
correct.”
Yansan awarded me three bows, each lower than the one preceding it,
and, while bending his back, endeavored, though with some confusion,
to conceal the roll in his wide sleeve. Yansan was possessed of much
shrewdness, and the bill certainly was a long standing one.
“Your Excellency,” he began, “confers too much honor on the dirt
beneath your feet by mentioning the trivial sum that is owing.
Nevertheless, since it is your Excellency’s command, I shall at once
retire and prepare the document for you.”
“Oh, don’t trouble about that, Yansan,” I said, “just pull it out of
your sleeve and let me look over it.”
The wrinkled face screwed itself up into a grimace more like that of a
monkey than usual, and so, with various genuflections, Yansan withdrew
the roll and proffered it to me. Therein, in Japanese characters,
was set down the long array of my numerous debts to him. Now, in
whatever part of the world a man wishes to delay the payment of a bill,
the proper course is to dispute one or more of its items, and this
accordingly I proceeded to do.
“I grieve to see, Yansan,” I began, putting my finger on the dishonest
hieroglyphic, “that on the fourth day you have set down against me
a repast of rice, whereas you very well know on that occasion I did
myself the honor to descend into the town and lunch with his Excellency
the Governor.”
Again Yansan lowered his ensign three times, then deplored the error
into which he had fallen, saying it would be immediately rectified.
“There need to be no undue hurry about the rectification,” I replied,
“for when it comes to a settlement I shall not be particular about the
price of a plate of rice.”
Yansan was evidently much gratified to hear this, but I could see that
my long delay in liquidating his account was making it increasingly
difficult for him to subdue his anxiety. The fear of monetary loss was
struggling with his native politeness. Then he used the formula which
is correct the world over.
“Excellency, I am a poor man, and next week have heavy payments to make
to a creditor who will put me in prison if I produce not the money.”
“Very well,” said I grandly, waving my hand toward the crowded harbor,
“my ship has come in where you see the white against the blue.
To-morrow you shall be paid.”
Yansan looked eagerly in the direction of my gesture.
“She is English,” he said.
“No, American.”
“It is a war-ship?”
“No, she belongs to a private person, not to the Government.”
“Ah, he must be a king, then,--a king of that country.”
“Not so, Yansan; he is one of many kings, a pork king, or an oil king
or a railroad king.”
“Surely there cannot be but one king in a country, Excellency,”
objected Yansan.
“Ah, you are thinking of a small country like Japan. One king does for
such a country; but America is larger than many Japans, therefore it
has numerous kings, and here below us is one of them.”
“I should think, Excellency,” said Yansan, “that they would fight with
one another.”
“That they do, and bitterly, too, in a way your kings never thought of.
I myself was grievously wounded in one of their slightest struggles.
That flag which you see there waves over my fortune. Many a million of
sen pieces which once belonged to me rest secure for other people under
its folds.”
My landlord lifted his hands in amazement at my immense wealth.
“This, then, is perhaps the treasure-ship bringing money to your
Excellency,” he exclaimed, awestricken.
“That’s just what it is, Yansan, and I must go down and collect it; so
bring me a dinner of rice, that I may be prepared to meet the captain
who carries my fortune.”