Yamen of His Excellency the Provincial Judge T'ainan-fu
Mr. Po proved to be a tall, slim, rather elegant young man in conventional plain robe, black skull-cap and large spectacles, who met Brachey's stiff greeting with a broad smile and a wholly Western grip of the hand.
“How d' do!” he said eagerly: “How d' do!” Then he glanced about at the two worn old chairs, the crumbling walls of the sun-dried brick with their soiled, ragged motto scrolls, the dirty matting on the kang, and slowly shook his head. “You're not comfortable as all get-out.”
If there was in Mr. Po's speech a softness of intonation and a faint difficulty with the r's and l's, the faults were not so marked as to demand changes of spelling in setting it down. He accepted a cigarette. Brachey lighted his pipe.
“You are quite at home in English,” remarked Brachey.
“Oh, yes! English is my professional matter in hand.”
“You have lived abroad?”
“Oh, no! But at Tientsin Anglo-Chinese College, I made consumption largely of midnight oil. And among English people society I have broken the ice.”
Brachey settled back in the angular chair; pulled at his pipe; thought. The man was here for a purpose, of course. But from that slightly eager manner, it seemed reasonable to infer that among his motives was a desire to practise and exhibit his English, a curious mixture of book phrases and coast slang, with here and there the Chinese sentence-structure showing through. And he offered an opportunity to study the local problem that Brachey mentally leaped at.
So these two fell into chat, the smiling young Chinese gentleman and the austere Westerner. Mr. Po, speaking easily, without emphasis, his casual manner suggesting that nothing mattered much—not old or new, life or death—revealed, through the words he so lightly used, stirring enthusiasms. And Brachey observed him through narrowed eyes.