The White Mice

by Richard Harding Davis

On the other side of the world, four young Americans, with legs crossed and without their shoes, sat on the mats of the tea-house of the Hundred and One Steps. On their sun-tanned faces was the glare of Yokohama Bay, in their eyes the light of youth, of intelligent interest, of adventure. In the hand of each was a tiny cup of acrid tea. Three of them were under thirty, and each wore the suit of silk pongee that in eighteen hours C. Tom, or Little Ah Sing, the Chinese King, fits to any figure, and which in the Far East is the badge of the tourist tribe. Of the three, one was Rodman Forrester. His father, besides being pointed out as the parent of “Roddy” Forrester, the one-time celebrated Yale pitcher, was himself not unfavorably known to many governments as a constructor of sky-scrapers, breakwaters, bridges, wharves and light-houses, which latter he planted on slippery rocks along inaccessible coast-lines. Among his fellow Captains of Industry he was known as the Forrester Construction Company, or, for short, the “F. C. C.” Under that alias Mr. Forrester was now trying to sell to the Japanese three light-houses, to illuminate the Inner Sea between Kobe and Shimoneseki. To hasten the sale he had shipped “Roddy” straight from the machine-shops to Yokohama.

Three years before, when Roddy left Yale, his father ordered him abroad to improve his mind by travel, and to inspect certain light-houses and breakwaters on both shores of the English Channel. While crossing from Dover to Calais on his way to Paris, Roddy made a very superficial survey of the light-houses and reported that, so far as he could see by daylight, they still were on the job. His father, who had his own breezy sense of humor, cancelled Roddy’s letter of credit, cabled him home, and put him to work in the machine-shop. There the manager reported that, except that he had shown himself a good “mixer,” and had organized picnics for the benefit societies, and a base-ball team, he had not earned his fifteen dollars a week.

When Roddy was called before him, his father said:

“It is wrong that your rare talents as a ‘mixer’ should be wasted in front of a turning-lathe. Callahan tells me you can talk your way through boiler-plate, so I am going to give you a chance to talk the Japs into giving us a contract. But, remember this, Roddy,” his father continued sententiously, “the Japs are the Jews of the present. Be polite, but don’t appear too anxious. If you do, they will beat you down in the price.”

Perhaps this parting injunction explains why, from the time Roddy first burst upon the Land of the Rising Sun, he had devoted himself entirely to the Yokohama tea-houses and the base-ball grounds of the American Naval Hospital. He was trying, he said, not to appear too anxious. He hoped father would be pleased.

With Roddy to Japan, as a companion, friend and fellow-tourist, came Peter de Peyster, who hailed from the banks of the Hudson, and of what Roddy called “one of our ancient poltroon families.” At Yale, although he had been two classes in advance of Roddy, the two had been roommates, and such firm friends that they contradicted each other without ceasing. Having quarrelled through two years of college life, they were on terms of such perfect understanding as to be inseparable.

The third youth was the “Orchid Hunter.” His father manufactured the beer that, so Roddy said, had made his home town bilious. He was not really an orchid hunter, but on his journeyings around the globe he had become so ashamed of telling people he had no other business than to spend his father’s money that he had decided to say he was collecting orchids.

“It shows imagination,” he explained, “and I have spent enough money on orchids on Fifth Avenue to make good.”

The fourth youth in the group wore the uniform and insignia of a Lieutenant of the United States Navy. His name was Perry, and, looking down from the toy balcony of the tea-house, clinging like a bird’s-nest to the face of the rock, they could see his battle-ship on the berth. It was Perry who had convoyed them to O Kin San and her delectable tea-house, and it was Perry who was talking shop.

“But the most important member of the ship’s company on a submarine,” said the sailor-man, “doesn’t draw any pay at all, and he has no rating. He is a mouse.”