He could not believe it when next day a schoolboy English clerk behind a counter told him the price of a journey to Peking.
“Say it again, please,” said Edward.
The boy said it again without referring to any book. He seemed to know the dreadful words by heart, just as a torturer knows by heart the levers that will hurt most.
“That’s seventy dollars more than I have,” said Edward.
“Hard luck,” said the boy, looking at him curiously. It seemed odd to him to admit such a thing. “You can go by boat to Tientsin. That would save you a few dollars.”
“It wouldn’t save enough dollars for me,” said Edward. He stood on the doorstep of the office. “Well, I can’t stop here all day,” he thought. Several times he told himself briskly, “Well, well, well, I can’t stop here all day....”
He comforted himself presently by thinking, “I must have tremendous courage to have got so far. Many people wouldn’t have got out of that naked little room in San Francisco.” He drew a little courage from the illusion of his own courage. Presently he realised that the world did not end on the doorstep of a tourist agency. He found several possible jobs in the newspaper. “English jobs sound somehow less fierce than American jobs,” he thought and, buoyed up by a desperate hope, he called on the headmaster of an English school for Chinese.
“I’m afraid you haven’t had much experience of teaching,” said the headmaster, a gentle, uncertain young man, looking at Edward unhappily.
“It is I who am afraid,” replied Edward courteously.