“You do, eh? Do you understand it?”
“I don’t think either an American or a European ever understands an Asiatic people.”
“Oh, yes, we do,” rejoined Mr. Hemster; “they’re liars and that’s all there is to them. Liars and lazy; that sums them up.”
As I was looking for the favor of work, it was not my place to contradict him, and the confident tone in which he spoke showed that contradiction would have availed little. He was evidently one of the men who knew it all, and success had confirmed him in his belief. I had met people of his calibre before,—to my grief.
“Well, young man, what can I do for you?” he asked, coming directly to the point.
“I am looking for a job,” I said.
“What’s your line?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What can you do?”
“I am capable of taking charge of this ship as captain, or of working as a man before the mast.”