Now it will be necessary for you to know the English better than perhaps you do, indeed, even with this increased knowledge you'll still be short unless you know the Singapore English, and, even with that knowledge, you won't be fully enlightened unless you've come in contact with the Singapore English official, to realize what a regular Daniel in the lion's den I was to tell that being that I proposed to "shake" Singapore.
Shake Singapore!
Ye gods!
Tell a Singapore official to his face that you are going to shake the town! A Yankee at that, and from Hong Kong to boot!
Ye gods! Tell a Singapore official to his face that you are going to shake the town!
A Singapore Englishman feels about Hong Kong, even when not infected, as a St. Paul man used to feel about Minneapolis before Minneapolis put it out of the running.
That Rangoon steamer was due to sail at 5 P. M. this very day, or I wouldn't have dared.
A laugh went down the line of crushed candidates for landing at the heavenly port of Singapore, which helped me to bear the jove-like frown of the official—it helped a lot. It egged me on to further deeds of daring; for when he handed me a duplicate of the undertaking I had signed, to remind me of what I was up against if I didn't report to him at 3 sharp the following day, if I was still in town, with the remark: "Right-o, see that you report at the health office daily at 3 P. M. every day you're in town after today"—with my eye on that ship for Rangoon I came back with: "Right-o, if I don't shake Singapore today you'll find me on the stoop of your office daily at 2:59, so you can feel my pulse and look at my tongue. But, oh man, my only object in coming to Singapore at all is to get out of it. Wouldn't have come to Singapore if there had been a way around it. I don't like Singapore. I think it a measly town. I like Hong Kong. Hong Kong is a nice town. It's got Singapore beaten forty ways"—and it made a hit with the crowd, and I swelled out my chest and swaggered away, and thought I was funny.
