"No, sir, no damage done, and I hope you wer'n't shook up; but don't you want to buy a prime jade teapot, and help out an American soldier who's broke, an' ain't got no other means of support? I know it ain't worth much, bein' nothin' but a toy, but I need the price, whatever it is."
The officer bowed as if honored by the confidence, and replied: "It is not customary to sell jade teapots in the streets so early in the morning, and I am in the hurry to arrive with my duty. But Japan and America are so great friends since Peking, eh? Is it not? A-h, is th-a-a-t the jade, and from Peking, eh? I do not know everything about jade, but there are many good times for you in that teapot; ha, ha! I think so. I am not so mean to rob the honorable soldier. You will make a borrow of this two yen—two dollars—all right, eh? And you will take my card and the teapot will come with you at my house at noon hour, eh?"
Before the beclogged brain of "Shorty" Blake had caught up with these directions, the rickshaw was whisking around a curve of the hillside, and the derelict was left staring after, the jade teapot in one hand, and two one-yen notes in the other. Visions of wealth made him tingle, and he rewrapped the treasure with reverent deliberation. Then began another battle with a battered fragment of a conscience, and the voice of Saunders was so distinct in his ear that he turned suddenly more than once to mutter to the empty street:
"I'm on the edge of the shivers. It's a bad sign when you hear voices as plain as that. It's that baby whine of his, always cryin', 'Ten days more an' the folks will be homeless and starvin', an' I can't do nothin'.'
"Holy smoke! I've heard that string of dates often enough to keep track of 'em. An' there's three more days leeway or I've missed my count. An' me with a fortune in this little monkey-doodle teapot, if that Jap wasn't stringin' me."
From stories told later to his "bunkie" on the transport, it is probable that "Shorty" Blake passed through great mental stress during the forenoon of his second day in Nagasaki, but that this ordeal was nothing compared with his torments after an interview with a wealthy dealer in curios at the home of a major of Japanese infantry on the hill. There is reason to believe that the discharged private of the China Relief Expedition kept his appointment in a fairly sober condition, although much shaken and easily startled. An hour later, the Japanese officer accompanied "Shorty" Blake to the telegraph office and the branch of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, with an air of anxious guardianship, as if determined to see a wavering project through to the finish. Shorty skipped references to his escort in subsequent narratives, as if the topic were painful, dismissing his interview with the sweeping summary:
"I had to go an' put that little Jap wise to the whole hard-luck story of Jim Saunders. Then he talked to me like a Dutch uncle, and had me on the mourners' bench in no time. Them Japs is strong on filial duty, and he never let up on me till the job was done."
Twenty-four hours later, the Signal Corps operator at the American army station in Peking copied a message addressed to "J. Saunders, P Company, Ninth Infantry, Field Hospital No. 1."
"Sold teapot for eight hundred dollars gold. Have cabled six hundred to old lady to bust mortgage. Will bust Nagasaki wide open with balance. If not dead, brace up.
(Signed)