Sir Robert began smiling--an old man's smile. I started down the stairs,
but he kept at my side.
We went on to the outer door together without a word, and waited while
the boy called rickshaws for us. I looked at Sir Robert. He was still
smiling.
“Let me congratulate you,” he said then, rather dryly. And his left
eyelid drooped in what was grotesquely like a wink. “You have the
distinction, I believe, of being quite the most practical man in the
world. You will go far.”
Thank God, the rickshaw is the most unsociable of vehicles. Each of us
stepped into his own and rolled away through a dim street bordered by
rows of gay paper lanterns, which were lighted now.
As my rickshaw turned the corner, we nearly collided head on with
another one. By the light of the lanterns I made out its occupant--the
fat vaudeville manager from Cincinnati.
He waved a cheerful hand at me as we passed.
“Number Nine?” he called.
“Number Nine,” I replied. I felt depressed and ashamed; but he took it
very easily.
I have, however, confirmed a conclusion tonight, so the experience has
its value. I shall push on to China, where the ancient music may still
be caught in its pure form, uncorrupted and unconfused by the modern
touch. For my purposes, time spent in Japan would be wasted. And I shall
hurry past the treaty ports to Peking. The treaty ports, they tell me,
are not really Chinese at all. For that matter, how could they be?
_Grand Hotel, Yokohama, March 30th, Early Afternoon._
|CROCKER has not yet appeared. I borrowed his key from the office, just
before lunch, and looked in his room. His bed had not been, slept
in. There is certainly no indirection about Crocker, no introspective
uncertainty; he meets life as it presents itself, roughly and squarely.
On the whole, I find I like him much better than I expected. He is
really a companionable chap. He is not so eager to tell his troubles as
I had thought he would be. In fact, barring that one moment on the ship,
he has not even referred to them; and I myself drew that out by telling
him he was drinking too much.
Sir Robert came over and sat with me just now in the dining-room while I
finished my lunch. I cut the meal as short as I could. He was distinctly
affable. He asked point-blank where I am going, and I had to tell. It
seems that he is bound for Peking also, _via_ Shanghai and Nanking.
Fortunately, he announced his route before asking about mine. I decided
on the spot to go around by the Korean and Chinese Imperial Railways,
through Fusan, Mukden, and Shanhaikwan.
However, he perhaps did me a service by telling me of a pleasant little
French hotel at Peking, on the Italian _glacis_, whatever that is. The
big hotel in the Legation Quarter, he says, is rather expensive and at
this time of year will be swarming with tourists. The little _Hôtel
de Chine_, on the other hand, is frequented only by queer types of the
Coast, and is really very cheap.
“The _cuisine_,” said Sir Robert, “is atrocious. But, being French,
they serve excellent coffee, which does for breakfast and one can, in a
pinch, put together a fair luncheon there. For dinner, the _Wagon-lits_,
of course. Above all, make no experiments with the cellar of the _Hôtel
de Chine_. They will show you an imposing wine-card. Shun it!”
I merely bowed at this. It was no use telling Sir Robert that I should
certainly not know one alleged vintage from another.
There is one difficulty. Sir Robert himself, affecting a taste for the
quaint, will be stopping at our less pretentious hostelry; again, with
my eyes closed at night, I shall see that bad old face with the one
drooping eyelid; again that loose voice will sound in my ears. But then,
I shall be very busy.
Some one is knocking at my door. Crocker is calling.
Midnight--Still the 30th.
|CROCKER was in the worst shape I have seen him in so far. His eyes
were red. And when he dropped on my couch, the first thing he did was
to stretch out his right hand and watch it critically. It was decidedly
unsteady.
“Ring up a boy, old chap, will you?” he said. I did so. He ordered a
quart bottle of whisky and a half-dozen bottles of _Tan San_.
“Steady my nerves,” he observed, half to himself. “It's that dam'
_saké_. Gets to me like absinthe.” He chuckled. “I must have a quart of
the stuff in me. Some night, my boy!”
Curiously, a few drinks of the whisky did seem to steady his nerves.
After a while he came over to the table, sat down opposite me, and
lighted a cigar. We talked for an hour or two--until I finally explained
that I really had to get at my work. Then he returned to the sofa,
stretched out comfortably, with the whisky and an ash-tray on a chair
beside him, and watched me, with only an occasional good-natured
interruption.
He seemed greatly interested in my method of musical notation. Of
course, the ordinary staff of five lines would not serve me at all,
since I find it necessary to indicate intervals much closer ===than the
usual half-step. I use large sheets of paper, ruled from top to bottom
with fine lines, every sixteenth line being heavier. Thus I can record
intervals as fine as the sixteenth of a tone. In fact, as I told
Crocker, and as Rameau and von Stumbostel both recognize, _I have
actually done so!_ I undoubtedly possess the most delicate aural
perception of any scientist that has ever investigated the so-called
primitive music. My ears are to me what the eyes of the great astronomer
are to him. This is why all my contemporaries, particularly the great
von Stumbostel, are following my present inquiry with such extraordinary
interest.
It was six o'clock before I finished noting down the songs and _koto_
melodies from my records of the preceding evening. Crocker sipped
continuously at his whisky and _Tan San_--to my surprise, without the
slightest apparent ill effect. Perhaps he grew a little mellower, a
little more human, as the phrase runs, but that was all. When my work
was done, I drew a chair to the sofa, put my feet up, and encouraged him
to talk.
At a little after seven he went to his room to dress for dinner.
I scrubbed some of the ink off my fingers and slipped into my
dinner-jacket, then knocked at his door.
As we descended the wide stairs, I observed that Crocker was walking
down very rigidly, placing his foot squarely in the middle of each step.
On the landing he paused, and turned to me with a slight smile.
“Am I acting all right?” he asked.
“Perfectly. Why?”
“My boy,”--he lowered his voice,--“I'm drunk as a lord. But I reckon I
can get away with it. Come along.”
He really handled himself surprisingly well. I am not an expert, of
course, in the various psychological reactions from drink. I should have
said he was a little over-stimulated, nothing more. He kept away from
the bar, and at the table in the big dining-room drank very little--only
a cocktail and a light wine with the roast. And he discussed this with
me at the start, finally deciding that it would not be wise for him to
stop abruptly.
All went well until the dessert. There was quite a choice of items on
the bill. I ordered vanilla ice cream. I distinctly heard him order the
same. I recall wondering a little, at the moment; for surely vanilla
ice cream was not the most desirable addition to the various substances
already on his alcohol-poisoned stomach.
When the waiter set the dish before him, he astonished me with a sudden
outburst of anger.
“Good God!” he cried, quite loud, “am I to be treated like this! Has
nobody any regard for my feelings!”