"You are very generous, but I cannot accept alms, thank you."
With an apology for having so long detained him, Ellison continued his walk down the beach. Hong Kong Joe was in his boat-building yard, laying the keel of a new lugger. Approaching him he came to the point straight away:
"I am in search of work. Have you any to give me?"
The boat-builder straightened himself up, looked his questioner in the face, ran his eye round the tattered shirt, and arrived at the moleskin trousers. When he got higher up the bruised eye seemed to decide him.
"Not with that eye, thank you," he said. "When I want one, I can get my pick of fighting-men in the settlement without employing a stranger."
"Then you don't want me?"
"No, thank you."
"You can't put me in the way of finding any employment, I suppose? God knows I want it pretty badly."
"Try Mah Poo's store on the Front. I heard him say yesterday he wanted a steady, respectable chap, so you should just about qualify. No harm in trying, anyway."
Thanking him for his advice, and ignoring the sarcasm contained in it, Ellison walked on to the Chinaman's shop. The Celestial was even less complimentary than the boat-builder, for without waiting to answer the applicant's inquiries, he went into his house and slammed the door. At any time it hurts to have a door banged in one's face, but when it is done by a Chinaman the insult is double-edged. Ellison, however, meekly pocketed the affront and continued his walk. He tried two or three other places, with the same result—nobody wanted him. Those who might have given him work were dissuaded by the bruises; while those who had no intention of doing so, advised him to desist from his endeavours until they had passed away. He groaned at the poverty of his luck, and walked down the hill to the end of the new jetty, to stare into the green water whose colour contrasted so well with the saffron sands and the white wings of the wheeling gulls.