“Ship ahoy!” Mason called. “Where are we — Java, Singapore, or Japan? Lower the gangplank so I can come aboard.”
She made motions of turning a windlass. “Okay, Chief,”she said, “watch your step. Those sampans are tricky things to step out of. Here you are. Now climb this ladder. Okay. Here, give me a hand.”
She stretched forth her right hand, clinging to the desk with her left. Mason gripped her hand, gave a long jump to reach her side and said, “How’s this?”
“That’s fine. Now you’re aboard. What do you think of it?”
“Wonderful! Is this my steamer chair?” he asked, indicating the office chair.
“Yes,” she said. “Just settle back and relax and look at the scenery. Over here’s Honolulu. That’s Diamond Head just beyond the beach at Waikiki. See the natives riding the surf with outrigger canoes? The circular says you get a speed of thirty or forty miles an hour, coming in for almost a mile, riding the crests of the huge breakers. Look at the way the water hissed up from the bow.”
“Too tame,” Mason told her, “I want to be the chap riding the surf board.”
“They say that takes lots of practice.”
“Well,” he told her, “it’d be fun learning. Where do we go from here?”
She indicated the next circular. “Tokio,” she said. “That is, the boat docks at Yokohama. We can see Yokohama and then take a run up to Tokio. And after that, here’s Kobe,” indicating another circular, “and then we cross the Yellow Sea and go up the river to Shanghai.”