“You are so new and green to the East,” said Hoskins, his first friend, a police officer returning from short leave. “You had better keep your eyes skinned! Rangoon is not like India, but a roaring busy seaport, where every soul is on the make. You will find various elements there, besides British and Burmese. Tribes from Upper Burma, Tibetans, Hindoos, Malays, Chinese and, above all, Germans. They do an enormous trade, and have many substantial firms and houses, and put through as much business as, or more than, we do ourselves. No job is too small, no order too insignificant for their prompt attention. They have agents all over the country, who pull strings in wolfram and the ruby mines, and have a finger in every mortal thing. I’ll say this for them, they’re most awfully keen and industrious, and stick at nothing to earn the nimble rupee, underselling when they can, and grabbing contracts and trade secrets. Some of these days they will mine us out of Burma!”
“So I see they needn’t go to you for a character,” remarked Shafto.
“Oh, they are not all tarred with the same brush! I have some good pals in the German Club—fellows that are as straight as a die. Is this your first journey out of England?”
“Yes, bar winter sports in Switzerland, when I was a kid.”
“Well, you will see a small bit of the world this trip; as soon as we collect the passengers at Marseilles, and once the awnings and the moon are up, things will begin to hum!”
“How do you mean hum?”
“We shall have sports, dances, concerts—this has always been a gay ship, and the purser is a rare hustler. We are due at Marseilles to-morrow morning, and we take in a cargo of the lazy luxurious folk who abhor ‘the Bay,’ and have travelled overland. I’d have done the same, only I’m frightfully hard up; three months at home, having a ‘good time,’ comes pretty expensive!”
“I hope you will be a fixture in Rangoon?”
“I’m afraid not; I’m going straight up to Mandalay, but I shall be down later, and meanwhile I’ll do my best to settle you in that chummery. I’ll send a line to FitzGerald of my service; he lives there; a rattling Irishman, with lots of brains in his handsome head, and a good sort; there’s also Roscoe, a clever oddity, and MacNab of the Irrawaddy Flotilla—a wonderful golfer. Most of the fellows in business in Rangoon are Scotch. Murray was in the same chummery; there were four chums till May.”
“And Number Four has gone home?”