Shanghai was in holiday attire and throngs of people were celebrating the coronation of King George V of Great Britain. I walked the streets and watched the happy crowds. A feeling came over me that I was out of it, that my stay in the city would be a wearisome one and that while every one else would be enjoying the celebration I could not take part in it. As I was thus musing, I heard a shout from the street.
"Did you find your friends?" It was the Scotchman whom I had met in Nanking.
"No," I shouted back, at once making up my mind to accept the stranger's invitation. I concluded that I had never been drugged or "shanghaied" and I was willing to take the chance. If any one made a suspicious move I would swing on him first and put up a good fight while the affair lasted.
"Come on with me, then," said the Scotchman.
"All right," I replied.
I returned to the Japanese hotel, checked out and immediately moved into the Scotchman's apartments.
This mysterious man whom I held in such suspicion and to whom I attributed such unworthy motives was Mr. John E. Hall, a prominent importer of steel rails, and one of the most respected citizens of Shanghai. I entered Hall's spacious apartments, was introduced to several of his friends and was soon seated at the dinner table putting away one of the finest meals any mortal ever ate. Everything in the line of good food and good liquor graced Hall's table, and every convenience and comfort from bath-room to billiard table was to be found in his residence.
I was given a guest card to the Shanghai Club, the finest in the Far East. I had a ticket to the Coronation service at the Cathedral. I sat in a reserved seat and viewed the parade. I was taken to all the points of interest in the city, both by day and by night, and if there was anything on the map too good for me, I didn't know it. This was a sample of hospitality hard to beat.
During my wanderings about Shanghai with Hall, I was taken, in the early hours of the morning, after the electrical parade which took place as a part of the coronation celebration, to the Carlton Café—a bohemian resort. As I entered this café, in company with a dozen of Hall's friends, I was startled to hear my name called out from the midst of the huge throng of midnight merrymakers. Here I was five thousand miles from home, and, so far as I was aware, there was not a soul I knew in the city. My name rang through the air again. I looked about and at last recognised a woman, who was standing on a table, as the source of the call. I soon discovered that she was inebriated and in a second I recalled that I had met her on the steamer Asia crossing the Pacific. I immediately went over to her, shook hands with her and exchanged the usual platitudes which are employed when people meet.
My friends wanted to know where I had met the lady, and informed me that she was one of the most notorious women of the Shanghai underworld. On the steamer she had given her name as Mrs. Davis and there was nothing in her demeanour during the voyage to indicate that she was not a respectable woman. It was on this basis that I had met her. Presently she came over to our table and asked if I would come and have tiffin with her the next day. I accepted.