Reinhardt had a very unpleasant quarter of an hour with Su Fing on the chief's arrival at Meichow. Explain, protest as he might, the rebel refused to believe him, and accused him (unkindest cut of all) of voluntarily transferring his moustache to Burroughs for the purpose of deception. But Reinhardt was a German, and therefore personally inviolate. Su Fing sent him ignominiously down the river, expressing with ironic courtesy his ardent wish that his moustache would never grow less.
Reinhardt would gladly have gone into retirement until he could once more show a German face to the world. Unhappily, within a week a peremptory message from his firm summoned him to Shanghai. His appearance in the European quarter was the reverse of triumphant. Some old acquaintances affected not to recognize him; others addressed him in such tones of mournful sympathy that he could hardly control his rage. The story had already got about, and when he entered the Club (for he did not lack courage) the air of kindly commiseration with which he was greeted drove him frantic. The younger members of the club talked among themselves of getting up a subscription for the purchase of a new moustache. In a few days his dressing-table was littered with a great variety of infallible hair-growers. The directors of Ehrlich Söhne said very unpleasant things of the ridicule he was reflecting on the firm. There were bets in the Club that he would stand it for ten days; but nobody grudged paying up when, at the end of a week, it was known that he had taken passage for Hamburg. There was a vast crowd to see him off, and this evidence of his popularity gained him the good-will of the uninformed passengers until the story leaked out on board the liner. His voyage home was not pleasant.
The last that was heard of Conrad Reinhardt was a story from the German Cameroons. He had got into bad odour with the natives, and one day disappeared. Several persons, probably innocent, were punished; but he was soon forgotten.
Lo San and Chin Tai had behaved very well during the time of stress in which their lives and their masters' hung in the balance. But when they returned to the routine of service at Sui-Fu, their daily bickerings were resumed. Chin Tai's animosity was fed by the substantial present with which Errington rewarded Lo San's devotion. Lo San, it must be confessed, was very exasperating. In the midst of a wordy war with his fellow-servant he would twit him with his ignorance and want of enterprise. He took a delight in displaying to the cook and other domestics, in Chin Tai's presence, the card tricks by means of which he had paid his way to Meichow.
On one of these occasions the two came to blows, which in China does not mean fist-play in the approved British style, but includes the use of finger-nails and boots, and very painful handling of the pigtail. The yells of combatants and spectators in the kitchen reached the ears of the masters in the dining-room.
"We shall really have to sack those fellows," said Burroughs. "It is getting intolerable."
"Let us go and knock their heads together first," said Errington. "I should be sorry to lose Lo San."
"He's not a patch on Chin Tai at looking after one's clothes," said Burroughs, loyal to his man.
"But Lo San's heaps better in serving at table."
"He can't polish boots."