"And have you no high buildings either?"
The explanation of ancient lights and the overhead space wasted in London was too much to go into. His attention was diverted by a newspaper placard.
"Ah," said he, "another earthquake, is it not?"
"Collapse of Australia" stared from that vermilion placard. It began to dawn on me that I had undertaken rather a large order in showing this Oriental London life.
"And you have not shown me any of your literati yet, or any of their houses."
We were stopped in a block of omnibuses and cabs. A line of sandwich-men were straggling along between vehicles and the curb. One of them stopped just by our cab; the rain was trickling down his nose; he looked as dismal as the weather. I could not resist the temptation of explaining that these were some of our literati undergoing punishment for some of the books or plays they had written. In China the crime is set forth on a board hung on the neck of the criminal, called the cangue. It was only a very mild surprise he showed when I gave him the names of the line of sandwich-men. "How like the head of your Shakespeare!" he said of one.
We were received at the hotel door by a brass-bound German in the undress uniform of a British admiral, who pays the hotel £500 for receiving tips. The rooms and corridors of the big building did not look hospitably cheering. There were no fires in the grates, because, being June, the weather ought to have been warm; and the electric lights were not turned on, because, being daytime, there ought to have been light. He liked the smoking-room. "It is more like one of our big tea-houses," he said. "Men do business here," pointing to a man with a sheaf of papers talking earnestly to another beside him.
"Yes, that is a company promoter."
"What is a company promoter?"
The nearest definition that occurred was, "A man who sells something he hasn't got to another who does not want to buy it."