In one thing the South American was eccentric. He would not beg. Though, to tell the truth, there was small temptation to be overcome in that regard; for the Jap is an ardent believer in the old adage anent the initial dwelling place of charity. Twice we found work in the city, the first in the press room of one of Japan’s English newspapers, the second on the wharf. But if the price of living was low, the wage scale was even more debased; and there were others to partake of our earnings, for in Yokohama were at least a score of beachcombers with well-developed appetites, closely banded together in a profit-sharing company.
When work failed, the blanket in the cupboard netted one yen. That gone, there were a few odds and ends of wearing apparel in my bundle to be offered up. The Chilian owned two pair of shoes; an extraordinary amplitude of wardrobe that smacked of foppishness. He felt more comfortable when the extra pair had been transferred from “holy Joe’s” keeping to the sagging line above the pawnshop door. When the shoes had been eaten, intercourse with the broker lapsed. Except for my kodak and our pipes not a thing remained but the clothes we stood in.
Then came the legacy from “Frisco Kid.” The “Kid” was one of the few Americans among us. On the first evening that we were forced to retreat “sobaless” to the Home, he drew me aside for a moment.
“You know,” he whispered, “the Pliades is going out to-night? I’m going to have a try at sticking away on her, an’ the washee man has a few of my rags.”
He thrust into my hand a wooden laundry check.
“If I don’t turn up in the morning, the stuff’s yours. So long. I’ll give ’em your regards in the States.”
At nine next day he had not returned, and, having satisfied the laundryman with a few coppers borrowed from the missionary, we feasted royally on the contents of the bundle,—a khaki uniform and two shirts.
It was on Saturday, nearly two weeks after my return from Tokyo, that the first prospect of escape from Japan presented itself,—a promise from the consul to speak in my behalf to the captain of a fast mail steamer to sail a few days later. Therein lay the last hope of completing my journey in the fifteen months set, and I took care that the consul should suffer no lapse of memory.
Early the following Monday, the last day of July, I turned in at the consulate just as two men, absorbed in conversation, emerged. One was the vice-consul; the other, a man of some fifty years, stalwart of figure and of a meditative cast of countenance rendered more solemn by thick-rimmed spectacles, a Quakerish felt hat, and long black locks. I set him down at once for a missionary, and, with a seaman’s instinctive aversion for the cloth, stepped aside to let him pass. The vice-consul, however, catching sight of me as he shook the stranger’s hand, beckoned to me to approach.
“By the way,” he said, addressing the stranger; “here is an American sailor who has been hanging around for a couple of weeks, and he has not been drunk once—”