“Yes,” said Martin.
“Have you any capital?”
“A little. A few hundred pounds.”
“Then stick to it like grim death. Don’t part with it here.”
“I haven’t the slightest intention of doing so,” said Martin.
The lean, yellow-faced man brought his chair back to normal perpendicularity and swung it round—it worked on a swivel.
“Mr. Overshaw,” said he, “pardon a perfect stranger giving you advice—but you seem to be a frank, straight man. You’ve made a mistake in coming to Hong-Kong. It’s a beast of a climate. In a few days’ time the rains will begin. Then it will rain steadily, drearily, hopelessly, damply, swelteringly, deadlily day after day, hour after hour, for four months. That’s one way of looking at things. There’s another. I am perfectly sure there’s not a vacancy for an amateur clerk in the whole of Hong-Kong. If we want a linguist—your specialty—we can get Germans by the dozen who not only know six languages but who have been trained as business experts from childhood—and we can get them for twopence halfpenny a month.”
Martin, remembering the discussions at the Café de l’Univers, replied:
“And when the war comes?”
“What war?”