Down the shoot would run a stream of semi-liquid cement and rubble and the two toiling labourers would pat and shovel the concrete into place until the tub was filled. Then to the first would be fastened a second mould, the process would be repeated and the pillar would rise. Then, on a day when the cement had hardened, the connecting wedges would be knocked away, the hinged tubs pried loose, the rough places of the Pillar of Grateful Memories chiselled and polished smooth and, crowned with a companion lion, the obelisk would stand in harmony with its fellow.
Yeh Ling looked up at the frail scaffolding that supported the vat and the narrow platform and wondered how many western building laws he was breaking. The second tub was now brimming with the grey concrete and a third and a fourth were being fixed. All this Yeh Ling saw from his place on the steps, a cigar clenched between his small teeth. He saw the workmen climb down the ladders from the interior of the new tubs, and he glanced at the sun and rose.
A blue-bloused Chinaman ludicrously handling a fan came running toward him.
“Yeh Ling, we must wait four days for the water-stone to grow hard. Tomorrow I will strengthen the wall of the terrace.”
“You have done well,” said Yeh Ling.
“I thought you wrong,” said the builder nodding, “it seemed so much money to waste. He that is not offended at being misunderstood is a superior man.”
“He that fears to correct a fault is not a brave man,” said Yeh Ling, giving one saying of Confucius for another.
The workmen lived on the spot; their fires were burning when he left the ground. On the roadway was a small black car, a noisy testimony to the efficiency of mass production and into this he stepped.
He did not drive away for a long time, but sat hunched up at the wheel, his head sunk in thought.
Once he glanced at the pillar in making; speculatively as though his meditations had to do with this. It was growing dark when at last he put his foot upon the starting plug and rattled away into the gloom.