YOU CAN NEVER TELL
By “B. MacArthur”
Very dimly shone the lamps of the rickshaws; very faintly came the tap-tap of the sandals passing to and fro on the Bund. Yokohama was going to sleep, and the great liners in the bay looked dark and ghost-like against the rising moon. The three men sitting on the terrace of the Grand Hotel met here every ninth week. They were captains of three of the liners. All were Englishmen. Blackburn, who commanded a ship owned and manned by Japanese, lit his pipe and gazed out across the harbour, drawing his hand over his brow and hair.
“Same old heat,” he said.
The others nodded.
Bainbridge, a slight little man with fair hair, moved restlessly.
“A week, and we’ll all be at opposite corners again,” he said, “none of them much cooler.”
“Not bad at home now,” mused Villiers, broad and silent man, with the gray eyes of a dreamer. He leaned forward, smiling slightly.
“D’ye know, it’s three years next month since I’ve seen th’ wife. Devil of a life! And I don’t see my way to getting back yet, either. No place for women, the East.”
Bainbridge stared at him uneasily.