“Aw, cut it out,” said Stone uneasily.
“Didn’t you see her look at Tam?”
“Fergit it. Tam’s married. Emerly’s straight, I tell yer. Emerly’s not like my Mom. Any guy that says Emerly’s crooked’s going to hear from me....”
He spat angrily but neatly into the moat. Not many boys so young as he acquire so much proficiency in the characteristic arts of their native land.
Edward watched him and was afraid of him. Edward himself as a child never spat and never played roughly with the feelings of men and women. He had never dared, yet his had been a safer world.
“Emily is shameless, I tell you, Stone....”
At Hankow Edward and Stone found that they had almost too much money. In order to go to Chungking—one of the few cities in the world without a Thomas Cook—they had to change their eight hundred American dollars into a much larger number of Mexican silver dollars. Their suitcases were rooted to the ground by the weight of their silver.
“Let me borrow some from you,” suggested Edward, turning scarlet in a way that proved his honesty to himself. “It’ll be a purely business transaction. I’ll pay you two per cent per month. I want a thin suit of clothes.”