Under the benign influence of a Salvation Army captain, my feet were guided safely through some of the lesser evils of Shanghai. The greater could not be fathomed in the short time allotted to me in the European capital of China. Miss Smythe, who resented being called Smith, in a manner that revealed she had long since ceased to be shy of mere man, belonged to New Zealand by birth and heaven by adoption. She chose Hong-Kong, Shanghai, and Tokyo as temporary resting-places. It was her task, every five years or so, to make a complete tour of the Orient to collect funds for the Salvation Army. Hence her captaincy.
I was walking along Queens Street, Hong-Kong, somewhat lone in spirit, when a rickshaw passed quickly by. The occupant, a fair lady, bowed pleasantly to me and disappeared in the mêlée. I could not recall ever having seen her face and wondered who in Hong-Kong she could be. Then it struck me that she wore a hat with bright red on it. Later that day, as I stepped into the launch to be taken across to the Tamba Maru, who should appear but this selfsame lady. We greeted each other, both surprised at the second meeting and at the coincidence of our joining the same ship.
"I thought I had met you when I greeted you on the street this morning," she said.
All the way from Hong-Kong to Shanghai she was as busy going from class to class as she was on shore, spreading the faith, placing literature where it could be found and read, organizing hymn parties and discouraging booze. The Japanese on board took her good-naturedly. She spoke their language fluently, but I could not see that they drank one little cup of saké the less for her.
When we arrived at Shanghai she would have nothing else but that I should go with her to some friends of hers for dinner. Into one rickshaw she loaded her bags, into another me, with the manner of one handling cargo, and then deposited herself in a third. The train made its way along the Bund and out of confusion. And that was the way I was shanghaied.
Somewhere in a street that might for all the world have been in Chicago, our train drew up. It was quiet, had a little open park in it, where two streets seemed to have got mixed and, scared at losing their identity like the Siamese twins, ran off in an angle of directions. Here at a brick-red building with balconies and porticoes, and a dark, damp door, we made our announcement and were received. Now what would the world have thought if a Salvation Army man had picked up a strange young woman on a steamer and haled her into a strange house? None but a Salvation Army Lassie could have done what Miss Smythe,—not Smith, mind you!—dared to do. We were welcomed as though the appearance of a stranger were in the usual course of events, and I was asked to stay for dinner. The hostess, a quiet woman, with her pretty young daughter, kept a boarding-house, and was always prepared for extra folk.
It was a boarding-house like any I should have expected to find in America. The rooms were spacious, hung with framed prints, and dark and slightly damp, according to Shanghai climate. There was something haunting about the house, but to a homeless vagabond like myself it seemed the acme of comfort. And to one who had had no real home meal in five weeks or more, but only ship's food, the spread we sat down to was delicious.
Miss Smythe did not enjoy her dinner as much as I did, for she feared all along that she would not be able to get to church on time. Then it was too late for me to regain my ship, so I was invited to spend the night under a roof instead of a deck.
The next day I wandered off by myself, but not till I had promised to return for Chinese "chow." In the meantime Miss Smythe had spread my fame among others of her profession, and made a date for me to go to a "rescue house" or some such place that evening. It was a mission home for Japanese, run by a woman who, if she wasn't from Boston, I'm sure must have come from Brookline. The only thing Oriental about that mission was its Japanese. A sumptuous dinner was served which, despite the fact that I had had "chow" only twenty minutes before, I was compelled to eat. With two heavy meals where one is accustomed to berth, accommodations were somewhat crowded.
Everything would have gone well if I hadn't promised to give the residents a talk on my travels. I began. Miss Smythe felt that I wasn't emphasizing the presence of God in the numerous regions I had visited. I took His omnipresence for granted, but she kept breaking into my talk at every turn. Two meals inside of two people who both tried to lecture at once didn't go very well, especially at a mission in China run by Europeans and attended by Japanese. It seemed that there was not over-much love lost on the part of the sons of Tenno for those of the Son of Heaven, nor did the European missionaries at this place encourage the intermarriage of these illustrious spirits. The Bostonian in exile on more than one occasion spoke disparagingly of the cleanliness of the Chinese, much to the satisfaction of the Japanese. But then, she was winning and holding them to the Son of God, and when they reached heaven they would all be one. Miss Smythe afterward apologized to me for interrupting me during my talk, and we parted as cordially as we had met. Some months later I found her roaming the streets of Kobe, Japan, as active as ever in the militant cause. Her insinuations about what goes on in Japanese inns seemed to me unjustifiable. So I asked her whether it was fair to the Japanese and Chinese for her to be forever repeating hearsay when she would resent it were I to repeat what I had heard about the morality of the Australians. It took her aback, but I am sure that she is still pursuing vice and drink and irreverence, aided and abetted by the dollars which she extracts from foreign business men and reprobates throughout the East.