It was my son Roderick!
Next moment, for the first time for very many years, he was in my arms.
The first thing that I remember saying to him was a typically Anglo-Saxon remark, for however much we live in the East or elsewhere, we never really shake off our native conventions, and habits of speech. It was, “How are you, my boy, and how on earth did you come here?” to which he answered, slowly, it is true, and speaking with a foreign accent:
“All right, thank you, father. I ran upon my legs.”
By this time Higgs hobbled up, and was greeting my son warmly, for, of course, they were old friends.
“Thought you were to be married to-night, Roderick?” he said.
“Yes, yes,” he answered, “I am half married according to Fung custom, which counts not to my soul. Look, this is the dress of marriage,” and he pointed to his fine embroidered robe and rich ornaments.
“Then, where’s your wife?” asked Higgs.
“I do not know and I do not care,” he answered, “for I did not like that wife. Also it is all nothing as I am not quite married to her. Fung marriage between big people takes two days to finish, and if not finished does not matter. So she marry some one else if she like, and I too.”
“What happened then?” I asked.