STIRRING UP TROUBLE
“I’d like to have seen the garden fête.” The speaker arose from his
seat at a desk, pushed a mass of papers aside and glanced at his watch.
“By Jove, it’s nearly over,” he added in some surprise. He put his
watch back in his pocket, and took a coat and hat from a peg in the
corner. “There’s my stuff on the desk. I am ashamed to be the author of
it.
“Jim, I think I’ll go around and take a look at these naval officers
I’ve been maligning. They’ll be coming away from the party just about
the time I get there, and I’ve a card of admission here in my pocket.
“Hello! this is your coat. Why on earth don’t you have the lining sewed
up? You’ll be losing something out of it before long if you don’t.”
George Randall, newspaper correspondent, hung up the other’s coat and
took his own, putting it on thoughtfully.
“Jim, you haven’t any business sticking to such an uncertain game as
this,” he added, a note of sympathy in his voice. “You’ve a family, and
ought to be home earning honest money.”
The man addressed, probably twenty years older than the speaker,
laughed uneasily.
“I was attracted by the price, the same as you were, George,” he
replied regretfully. “Neither of us understood what would be expected
of us, and if we weren’t so hard up we wouldn’t have accepted. But we
are in it now, and there’s no turning back.”
“Some one of these mornings,” Randall said gravely, “we’re going to
wake up to find we’ve been caught, and I’d hate to think what the Japs
will do to us. Boil us in oil, probably. That used to be the favorite
punishment for high treason in the days of the late Shoguns.
“I am frightened at Impey’s methods,” he added. “He’s playing a
dangerous game, and now with this American cruiser in port he’ll have
to be doubly careful.”
“Well, as long as he keeps that turbine yacht in Yokohama harbor my
mind will be easy,” James Wells exclaimed, smiling at his companion’s
earnestness. “The Japs don’t know that she has the speed of a torpedo
boat.”
Randall’s hand was on the door-knob, but suddenly he seemed to change
his mind, and walked back to where his companion was standing.
“I feel like a cur, writing the things I do when I know they are all
untrue.” His voice was vehement and his young face wore a troubled
look. “There’s only a filmy web of truth for all the woof of falsehood.
If I were not so completely up against it, I’d chuck the whole business
and go back home.”
James Wells’ face hardened slightly, and he bit his lips to suppress an
emotion which the younger man’s words caused him to feel.
“Look what we’ve been doing here for the last year, nearly,” Randall
continued savagely. “Arousing these slow minded Japanese to believe
that the United States is sitting up nights figuring out how to rob her
of her spoils from Russia. Everything that has come up we’ve turned
to our ends. Those San Francisco immigrant cases we twisted about so
that the Japanese believed that their people were being hung from the
lamp-posts. Now we are trying to dispose of the Chinese battle-ships to
the country that’s silly enough to buy them. We’ve made the Japanese
believe that the American fleet is only waiting to seize them before
coming north from Manila and putting Japan entirely out of business.
“The surprise to me is,” he added gravely, “that men like Captain Inaba
and the Emperor’s ministers believe it.”
“When you hear a thing every day, served up to you with all kinds of
fancy dressing, by and by you begin to believe there must be something
to it,” Wells answered with a smile. “Your eloquence, George, is so
wonderful that sometimes, ’pon my soul, I believe it myself.”
Randall smiled grimly at the implied compliment to his pen.
“It’s a low underhand game we are playing,” Randall exclaimed. “We
are nice Americans to be doing such work. I’d like to see that yellow
sheet, the ‘Shimbunshi,’ suppressed; then you and I would be out of a
job.”
“Yes, and ten thousand a year,” Wells answered; “that’s more than we’ll
ever make again; and most of mine is going to a bank at home.”
Randall heaved a sigh.
“I wish I was on to Impey’s real game,” he said thoughtfully. “He knows
all the big men here. He goes up to see the Chinese ambassador and
dines with him informally. He just came back from Peking the other day
and let drop a remark to me in a thoughtless way that told me that he
knew Lord Li, and Chang-Shi-Tung well. He learned Chinese from one of
the big men there who has a seat on the Wai-Wu-Pu, the privy council to
the throne of China. There’s more in it than just selling battle-ships,
I’ll make a bet on that.”
Randall shook himself very much as a big dog would after coming out of
the water, as he exclaimed feelingly:
“Of course there’s more in it. Impey’s stirring up a war between
our country and Japan, and what attracts me is the risk we run.
It’s stimulating to know that if we’re ever caught a Japanese prison
and rice three times a day will be our reward. And then you see,
Jim, if we can bring on this war, we’re right on the ground for war
correspondents. That’s an inducement for even an old shell-back
newspaper man like you.”
“The world owes each of us a living, I suppose,” Wells answered sadly.
“The more risks, the better pay.”
He picked up Randall’s “copy” from his desk and glanced carelessly
over it. Then a spark of interest showed in his sombre face, almost
immediately supplanted by oblivious concentration. Randall gave an
impatient shrug and, seeing that his friend would be absorbed for quite
half an hour, he threw himself in a chair to wait patiently until the
reading was over.
The minutes ticked away on the big clock opposite him, and he drummed
nervously with his finger nails on the arm of his chair. His glance
roamed from his companion and back to the clock.
“I told Impey I’d go to the garden fête.” His voice was in a half
aside. “I don’t know how he worked it to get me an invitation.” He
took it from his pocket and glanced at the big black Japanese letters
with the golden chrysanthemum at the top. “I suppose it reads, ‘His
Majesty the Emperor of Japan requests the extreme pleasure of Mr.
George Randall’s company to a garden fête to meet Her Majesty the
Empress.’ I hope the dear lady was not greatly disappointed when I
didn’t appear.” His face broke into a happy smile at the ridiculousness
of his thoughts. “With all the viscounts and barons, to say nothing of
counts and sirs, I hope it was really a relief to Her Majesty to find I
had not come.
“I wonder if I should write her and explain there was no offense, but
that I became so absorbed in something I was doing, to put it plainly,
to make trouble for her government, that I quite forgot the time of
day. But I am sure Impey made up for my absence. That fellow is a
wizard, the way he pulls the wool over people’s eyes. He’s as thick
as fleas with the American ambassador--and, by Jove!” Randall stopped
his spoken introspection to whistle softly, “even the ambassador’s
daughter has been taken in. He has a picturesque part in this show. I
believe I’d like to take his end. I am not allowed to see; I only write
from notes furnished me, like a blind novelist.”
“What’s all that rot you’re talking?” Wells had finished his reading
and was regarding Randall, a half smile of amusement on his earnest
face. “Do you know, George, you ought to be doing something worth
while. This thing,” tapping the manuscript he was reading, “is a gem.
How can you do it? The ‘Shimbunshi’ will make a big hit in its morning
edition, and just at the time when Japan is entertaining our officers.
To-morrow the American captain is to lunch with His Majesty.”
Randall heaved a sigh and rose from his chair. “Jim, if I could get out
of this thing honorably, I’d do it to-day, but I can’t go back to that
little old town in Indiana without money. They’ve got me here solid.
Good-bye, Jim; I am going down the street and talk to some of those
clean looking American sailors I saw this morning. I am just hungry to
hear them talk. You’re such an old musty bookworm that you don’t know
what it is to pine for the latest slang from little old New York.”
After his companion had gone, James Wells sat silent at his desk. His
mind was reviewing the last few years of his life, conjured out of the
almost forgotten past by Randall’s boyish outburst.
Little by little his friend was making him see their calling through
younger eyes. He was himself an old newspaper man. All news to him was
merchandise to sell to the highest bidder. To highly color it, to make
it more readable, was part of the game. No idea of being a traitor
to his country or a spy had ever entered his even, methodical, sober
thoughts until this youngster had sowed the insidious seeds. Was he
really harming his country? He had never thought of it in that light.
Every country was advancing in military and naval development and he
had been put at the head of the Tokyo office of a newspaper syndicate
whose avowed purpose was to collect all manner of news affecting the
armaments and also the political relations between countries. If he
thought that this syndicate had for its aim to strain the relations to
the breaking point of two naturally friendly countries, one of which
he still considered his own, why then he would quit, and go back to a
minor position on a big New York paper which he knew would always be
open for him. He had not always been shown the effusions of Randall.
His work was to systematically arrange the information received so that
Impey and Randall could use it. He picked up George’s manuscript and
let his eyes wander slowly over the scrawl.
“It seems peculiarly paradoxical that a cruiser of the United States
navy, commanded by an officer who until recently was at the head of
the Bureau of Naval Intelligence, should be sent to Japan just at the
time when the American battle-ship fleet having sailed for the Orient
_via_ the south of Africa, has arrived in Manila Bay. And is it less of
a paradox that one of her officers is the inventor of a torpedo which
is rumored to have the greatest range of any yet tried in any navy?
Again another officer is known to be an experienced aeronaut, having
been until recently the instructor with naval flying machines at
Washington. If one will take the roster of officers and give it a close
scrutiny he doubtless will discover that every method of prying into
the naval preparedness of Japan for war is represented by an expert.”
Wells looked up from his reading and there was a flash of fire in his
steel-gray eyes. “George is a darned hypocrite. He had the nerve to
write this, and then preach to me about our dishonorable trade.
“I wonder how much of this is true. Impey doubtless furnished him
with the data.” He seized the sheets, and read on while the clock
ticked the seconds slowly away. Finally he finished, put the copy
into an envelope, and struggled into his coat. “This must be in the
‘Shimbunshi’s’ office this afternoon if it is to make the sensation
intended,” he muttered grimly to himself as he pulled his slouch hat
over his thick hair. “I’ll make sure and take it myself,” he ended
decidedly as he shoved the letter into his inside overcoat pocket and
buttoned it tight before he issued forth into the street.
About the same time two sailormen were striding along one of the main
thoroughfares of Tokyo. They both towered head and shoulders above the
people about them.
“It’s been nearly five years since I first visited our little Japanese
brothers. They’re a curious lot, but, Bill, there ain’t nothing soft
about ’em.”
Boatswain’s Mate John O’Neil glanced as he spoke at his companion,
Seaman Bill Marley, both from the “Alaska.”
“In that war with the Ruskis they were right up to snuff,” he
continued, as they strolled along aimlessly. “They saw their work and
they went for it, and stayed on the job until it was finished.”
The two man-of-war’s men had come to Tokyo on the special train for a
forty-eight hours’ liberty in that Eastern capital, and were enjoying
themselves thoroughly. Everywhere they met welcoming smiles, and even
the little urchins playing in the streets stopped, and raising their
tiny hands aloft, cried “Banzai” as they passed.
The day was balmy; the air laden with perfume of many flowers. In the
shops they had seen many beautiful things and had spent a portion of
their slender pocket money on such articles as took their fancy,
marveling the while upon the smallness of the price.
“Say, Jack, look here; all this war talk is soap-suds, ain’t it?” Bill
Marley asked.
O’Neil contemplated the back of a man a half a block or so farther up
the street before replying.
“He’s in a big hurry about something,” he muttered half aloud, and Bill
Marley asked, “What’s that?” for he had heard O’Neil speak, and thought
it might be an answer to his question.
“Oh, about this war talk,” O’Neil responded, his mind reverting from
the stranger ahead, whom he made out to be a European in a big hurry to
get somewhere. “I don’t take no stock in it. There ain’t nothing that I
can see we’ve got to fight for, unless it’s just to see who’s the best
man. This war business cost too many people too much money. These Japs
are nice little fellows; they like us and they want to show us they
like us. They are mighty proud of their knowledge of fighting, too,
and they’ve got a code of honor they call ‘Bushido,’[1] or something
like it, which means, as far as I can find out, ‘If any one insults
you, and you can’t lick him, cut yourself open with a sharp knife.’ Now
fellows with ideas like that ain’t to be monkeyed with. If we treat ’em
square and be careful about treading on this ‘Bushy porcupine,’ they’ll
continue to yell ‘banzai’ at us, but if we get funny and put it over
them in some way, they’re apt to tackle even us.”
“And if we lick them,” Bill Marley asked, “then I suppose they’ll take
to the tall timbers and disembowel themselves?”
“That’s about the situation,” O’Neil replied, “but as far as I can see
there ain’t no sense in fighting. Can’t we leave these little fellows
alone with their troubles? Ain’t we got enough to do in those South
American republics, with them at each other’s throats every month?”
“Yes,” Bill Marley acknowledged thoughtfully. “Why does any one want
to spoil a nice place like Japan by going to war? I’d rather make a
liberty here than any place I know--outside of the Bowery.”
O’Neil paid this answer but scant attention. He had seen the European
ahead fairly run down the street and become lost within the crowd.
Upon approaching nearer, a piece of white paper caught the sailor’s eye
as it lay on the tiny sidewalk, almost on the edge of the crowd. Had
it been dropped by the European in his haste? The sailors picked it
up, and Marley shoved it down the bosom of his shirt for safe-keeping.
It was a long white envelope addressed to the “Editor of the
‘Shimbunshi.’” O’Neil had read the inscription as Marley held it toward
him.
“That’s for a yellow journal published in Tokyo. Hold on to it, Bill,”
he instructed. “There’s a row on here,” he added excitedly as they
pushed their way forward.
The two men soon realized that this crowd was more than a simple
assemblage on a street corner. From a swaying motion inside it appeared
that a struggle was in progress at its centre. They now again saw the
stranger pushing his way through, his head towering above the shorter
Japanese around him.
“I hope it ain’t a rikisha fight,” Bill said eagerly, as he hurried
after his companion. “These rikisha coolies is mighty mean when you
don’t give ’em three times the fare.”
“Come on, Bill, quick,” O’Neil exclaimed, but there was scant need for
urging. Both had seen enough to know that what was happening was a
great deal more serious than a rikisha fight. The midshipmen were in
danger from a mob.
“Put your shoulder in the small of my back and shove,” O’Neil cried
excitedly, as he dived into the crowd thickest about the machine,
scattering the people left and right. They were at the wheel of the
motor car before the mob could take in the meaning of this human
battering-ram.
“What’s the row, sir?” O’Neil asked hurriedly, turning toward the crowd
and pulling up his sleeves in a businesslike way.
“We ran over a man,” Phil replied in a nervous voice. “I hope he isn’t
dead. They took him from under the wheels and carried him over there,”
indicating a small house about the door of which many curious people
had collected. “Can’t we persuade the crowd to let him go on?” he added
anxiously. “They would have killed him a moment ago.”
[Illustration: “_WHAT’S THE ROW, SIR?_”]
O’Neil raised his voice and shouted “Junsa” at the top of his lungs
several times. Immediately the crowd moved backward. Three or four
policemen (Junsa) appeared suddenly as if they had leaped from within
the earth and cleared the way in front of the machine.
“Tell them we’ll answer for his appearance before the authorities,”
Phil said to O’Neil, in his excitement, believing that O’Neil could
interpret for him. However, he was not far wrong, for the sailor’s sign
language was quite clear enough.
“Blow your horn and beat it, mister,” O’Neil sharply directed the
driver of the car. “It’s getting to be a habit with you, I see,” he
added maliciously to Impey. “The man in such a hurry too,” he murmured
as he recognized the man on the front seat next the driver.
Impey made a hasty recovery, and with his horn blowing, the car glided
cautiously away, leaving the Americans to grapple with the situation.
“It would have served him right if they had given him a sound beating,”
Sydney cried indignantly a few moments later as they looked down upon
the white face of the victim lying on a mat within a tiny store
opposite the scene of the accident. “Has a doctor come?” he asked
solicitously; but the Japanese addressed only shook his head, saying
something in his own language which Sydney interpreted correctly to
mean that he did not understand.
“Why doesn’t some one get a doctor?” he exclaimed. The strain of
helplessly watching the sufferer was becoming unbearable. “Are you a
doctor?” he asked as a uniformed naval officer forced his way through
the curious throng and knelt at the injured man’s side.
With fascinated eyes the lads watched this grave little Japanese
examine the injured man. They saw his nervous hands move quickly over
the senseless form, resting momentarily here and there to make sure
before passing on to other parts of the crushed victim’s body. Finally
he rose to his feet while ready hands tenderly lifted the silent figure
to carry him away.
“He will not die; luckily the wheels did not pass over him. Only
contusion of the head and a broken leg,” the little doctor said in
studied English and with a very impressive professional smile, as
he shook hands with the midshipmen. “I was in the navy department
building, and came as soon as I was informed. He is an employee in one
of the offices, and was out with a message.”
The midshipmen followed the doctor into the hallway of the navy
building, where the injured man had been taken. They were quickly
surrounded by naval officers, asking for the story of the accident.
Phil found himself talking to Lieutenant Takishima, while behind him
stood Captain Inaba listening eagerly. There seemed to be much concern
over the deplorable affair. Several officers went out hurriedly and
soon returned, their faces grave, to make their report to Captain
Inaba. What was the meaning of so much concern over the mishap to a
mere employee?
“Can I not give him something, poor man?” Phil inquired anxiously,
producing his purse. “Of course, Mr. Impey will provide for him, but
maybe a little money would aid his family.” He innocently attempted to
put the bank-note into the victim’s pocket, but much to his surprise
his arm was held tightly by Captain Inaba. A look into the naval
man’s face convinced him that the attitude of those about them was not
friendly. Did they then blame Sydney and him for the accident? Surely
they could not be so unfair.
The midshipmen quietly withdrew, seeing that their presence was a
source of embarrassment. They found O’Neil and Marley waiting for them,
having engaged and held four rikishas. All thoughts of the ambassador’s
reception had quite passed out of the lads’ minds, so they were soon on
their way to their hotel as quickly as their coolies could carry them,
the sailors bringing up the rear.
“What is it, Marley?” Sydney asked as Marley signed them to stop as
they alighted and were entering the hotel.
“We’ve got something important to show you,” O’Neil said mysteriously,
his face grave, while Marley nodded soberly.
“Come along then,” Phil answered, leading the way through a side
entrance which opened on the court near the rooms assigned the American
naval officers.
O’Neil closed the door quietly, while Marley nervously put his hand
within his sailor blouse and produced the big envelope which he had
hidden within.
Phil took the proffered letter in silence.
“The ‘Shimbunshi,’” he read aloud. “Why, that’s for a Japanese
newspaper published in Tokyo. Where did you get it?” he asked.
Marley had turned red and was stammering incoherently. O’Neil came to
his rescue.
“It was lying in the street just before we hit the crowd, sir, and
Marley picked it up. I advised him to keep it snug.”
“But we must send it to its address; we have no right to keep it.”
Phil’s voice was indignant.
“Just as you say, sir,” O’Neil answered without emotion. “You notice,
sir, it is unsealed.”
Phil was devoured with curiosity to read the contents. The scene in the
hallway of the navy building now took on a new aspect. The injured man
was Inaba’s messenger. So ran Phil’s thoughts. He had been entrusted
with this letter. He had lost it. That surely was the cause of the
perturbation of the Japanese naval men. Some naval secret, perhaps,
but undoubtedly in Japanese, which they could not read. The more
honorable thing to do would be to go back post-haste and deliver the
letter to the Japanese navy department.
“It’s in English, sir, and it’s about us.” Marley had found his tongue
during the silence. “I stole a look while you were in the building.”
Phil’s curiosity had beaten down all scruples of honesty, and his
eyes were running rapidly over the words of the letter. At first only
amusement showed in his face, but it soon gave place to surprised
indignation and anger.