Then he let forth a more extended English sentence. Later we figured that it was the only sentence in English that he knew, and that he had learned that sentence by sitting at the feet of some stern, English teacher who had occasion to reiterate that sentence frequently.
This drunken Japanese looked at me sternly for laughing and said, "Silence! All gentlemen must be silent!"
This was too much for my sense of humor and I laughed again.
"Silence! All gentlemen must be silent!" he yelled a third time.
"We must get away from him; or we'll get into trouble. I can't keep from laughing when he repeats that," I said to Dr. Goucher.
We all moved back to another table, but Dr. Goucher sat by himself at a little table. This moving, insulted the drunken Japanese and he came back to where Dr. Goucher sat and leered into his face yelling once again, "All gentlemen must be silent!"
At this one of the party jumped to the side of Dr. Goucher and took the Japanese by the shoulder and turned him around and said, "Go! Sit down, fool!"
The train was whirling through the night. There were mutterings and imprecations among the Japanese and we thought that they were directed toward us; but a missionary who could understand the language, said that the whole crowd of Japanese was severely reprimanding the drunken Japanese for insulting foreigners. They told him in Japanese phrases that he ought to be ashamed of insulting foreigners in his own country.
About five minutes after this he suddenly left his seat, came staggering down the aisle of the car with a plate full of big red apples and offered an apple to each one of us as a peace offering.
We got to calling him, in our party "Old Mr. 'All gentlemen must be silent!'" and he came to be a real character in our fun.