Jim was well-known and respected among the Chinamen, the more so because of his vagaries.
Suddenly, he raised his arm in a rhythmic gesture of appeal. He uttered one word, arresting and commanding in its intonation:––
“Gentlemen!”
There were not very many gentlemen there, but each one present took the ejaculation as personal. The little crowd stopped and gathered round, gazing up with interest at the erect figure in the aisle, white robed, with hand still outstretched.
After a moment of tense silence, he commenced to recite Burns’ immortal poem on brotherly love.
Never had Phil heard such elocution. The intonation, 133 the fervour and fire, the gesticulation were the perfect interpretation of a poet, a mystic, a veritable Thespian. On and on Jim went in uninterrupted, almost breathless silence. Phil was anxious for his friend’s well-being, but he stood at the door listening spellbound, as did the Orientals about Jim, and the low whites who had straggled in toward the end of the Chinese performance, half-drunk and doped.
Vigorously, Jim concluded:––
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“Then let us pray that come it may, As come it will for a’ that, That sense and worth o’er a’ the earth May bear the gree, and a’ that. For a’ that, and a’ that, It’s coming yet, for a’ that, That man to man, the world o’er Shall brothers be for a’ that.” |
When he finished there was a round of applause, in which the Chinamen joined most noisily––an unusual thing for them who had sat throughout the entire evening’s play of their own without the slightest show of appreciation.
Phil had heard somewhere that Scotsmen and Chinamen understand each other better than any other nationalities on the globe do, but this was the first time he had had a first-hand ocular demonstration that the Chinaman appreciated the Doric of Robbie Burns, when delivered with the true native feeling.