It's right at this point in the narrative that this man got there with his sermon. He said: "Present my compliments to his Royal Highness, but tell him I wouldn't open my store on Sunday to do business even with the King of England."
Get that?
Ever been in London, dear old "Lunnun"? They set great store by selling royalty in England. There's a fellow over there in London doing a smashing business in oysters just because he can put up over his door "Purveyor of Oysters to His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales."
Well, this little-big sermon got back to England, and the result was that in the next five years this man sold goods to royalty pretty well over the world, and got rich. And he is here today; and he tells me that while he has played the game of business for the love of it, he is eighty years old now and is going to wind up. Being without wife or children, he is going to leave his wealth to orphan asylums.
XXIV
THE GLASS OF ICE WATER THAT JARRED RANGOON
To come to Rangoon and not go to see the elephants work the teak timber that comes down the Irawadi River would be like going to Venice and not have your picture taken in St. Mark's Square with the doves roosting all over you; or to leave the pyramids without a photograph of yourself with the great pyramid of Cheops for a background.
I plead guilty to the dove picture—it's on our mantle at home—had it taken to please my wife, who was with me on that trip.
The great satisfaction I take in that picture is its proof of my self-sacrificing nature.
Having visited Venice several times before I took my wife there, I knew all about that "picture-with-the-doves" game.