In a few minutes both were extended in comfortable, long cane chairs, no doubt experiencing an agreeable sense of bien être. The outlook, with its heavy foliage, was restful to the eye, and the air was charged with a spicy warmth.
Presently Salter began: “On Monday you are due at the office to report yourself. You need not be scared at the Head, although he has a stiff, discouraging sort of manner, and they say that, like the east wind, he finds out all your weak points in the twinkling of an eye! He is just and impartial, and no man is more respected in the whole of Burma than George Gregory. I suppose you know that Gregory’s is one of the oldest-established houses here?”
Shafto nodded; he had learned this fact on board ship.
“We do a great trade and employ a number of young fellows, mostly from public schools and universities. One or two other firms do not engage gentlemen—for reasons that, perhaps, you may guess. Out of business hours our house keeps a sharp eye on their employés. A young chap can get into any amount of mischief in Rangoon—Rangoon is full of temptations.”
“Oh, is it?” muttered Shafto indifferently—what could its temptations offer in comparison to London?
“Anyhow it seems a huge, stirring sort of place,” he added, as he watched motors, bicycles, and gharries whirring past the entrance.
“Stirring! Why you may say so—it’s humming like a hive day and night. There are so many taps to turn in this wealthy country—timber, rice, wolfram, jade, tin, oil, rubies. A man with a little capital, if he does not lose his head, can make a fortune in ten years, especially in paddy. Our particular trade is teak and paddy—that’s rice, you know. I expect your work will be on the wharf and pretty heavy at first.”
“Well, anyway, it’s an open-air job.”
“Yes, you have the pull now; this is our cold season—October to March; but the hot weather is no joke; as for the rains, you might as well live in a steam laundry; we get a hundred inches here in Lower Burma.”
“A hundred inches!” echoed Shafto, “you are not serious?”