Читать книгу A Yankee in the Far East - George Hoyt Allen - Страница 9

Returning from a trip to Tokio on a Monday forenoon I found at my hotel in Yokohama the following letter from my shipboard friend "Missouri":

Dear Mr. Allen:

You'll be surprised to learn that I am in jail. I started out this morning at 8 o'clock to go to church. At 8:30 I stopped at a saloon and met a delightful bunch and didn't get away from that saloon till 5 o'clock this evening. At 5:30 I was pinched and put in jail on a charge of assault with attempt to kill.

If the victim dies, please find out for me whether they behead, hang, or electrocute in Japan for capital punishment.

I've learned the Japanese language today, but don't want to talk to the jailer, as it might prejudice my case. For heaven's sake come and see me and I'll explain it all.

Hastily yours,

"Missouri".

On his own statement it looked bad for "Missouri." I had left him at Yokohama, where he had some business to look up, while I went to Tokio.

I had expected to find "Missouri" on my return to Yokohama that Monday forenoon, and instead of him I found his letter.

Pained! Grieved! Shocked! were too mild words. I was disappointed in "Missouri." A countryman in trouble under circumstances like these, however, called for prompt action, and I started off post-haste in a rikisha to see what could be done about it.

I conjured up a picture of "Missouri," the erstwhile prepossessing chap (even minus those side teeth "Missouri" was a fine-looking man), now battered, bruised and blear-eyed, disheveled and disreputable; probably he had been on a long toot – a relapse from rectitude, I surmised.

He had been entirely abstemious on the voyage, but there may have been chapters in his past life o'er which he'd drawn a veil in our shipboard confidences – anyway, it looked bad for "Missouri." His reference to starting out to church was probably only a vagary of a befogged brain.

These thoughts were mine as I was being rikishaed along to "Missouri's" rescue, when, whom should I see coming toward me in an automobile but "Missouri," the same "Missouri," in company with another just as smooth-looking individual, who was driving the machine.

"Missouri's" mouth was stretched from ear to ear in a joyous greeting as he caught sight of me. Those "gaps" showed tremendously – one couldn't blame his wife for wanting them "filled in."

"Lord! Mr. Allen, I'm glad to see you," he said, as the machine stopped. "Meet my friend here, 'Pennsylvania.' 'Pennsylvania' and I have had an experience. Too long a story to tell you here. Come on back to the hotel and I'll tell you all about it."

"That's all right, 'Missouri'," I said, "but," waving his letter at him, "what the devil do you mean by handing me such a story as this?"

"That letter is all right, Mr. Allen; come on back to the hotel and I'll give you the details."

The man "Missouri" had introduced to me as "Pennsylvania," who was apparently owner of the machine, advised me to let my rikisha boy go and come back to the hotel in the car with them; and in a couple of minutes we drew up to the hotel entrance and I invited them to my room, where I asked "Missouri" to square himself.

"Missouri" did the talking while "Pennsylvania" nodded assent at points where the story would seem to need a girder under it.

"This is how it happened, Mr. Allen," "Missouri" started in. "There's a missionary over in Tokio in whom the folks back in my town are interested, and they wanted me to look him up if I had time when I got to Japan. I dropped him a line upon my arrival, and told him where I was from, and that I was stopping in Yokohama at this hotel, and that I proposed to call on him the following Sunday. You know we landed on Monday. Wednesday of last week my missionary dropped over from Tokio and called on me and told me he'd be glad to see me in Tokio on the coming Sunday, to see the missionary work in that particular corner of the Lord's vineyard. We parted, and I assured him I would look him up in Tokio on Sunday – and that was yesterday.

"I met 'Pennsylvania' here the latter part of the week and we got acquainted. 'Pennsylvania' doesn't look like a disreputable character, and he isn't – ordinarily. Fact is, he's a most reputable manufacturer from Pennsylvania, doing Japan with his touring car.

"Saturday evening I told him of my program for Sunday, and he suggested we do the missionary field in Tokio the next day in his car.

"He told me Tokio was sprawled out over a good part of Japan, that rapid transit was in a chaotic state over there, and his car would be convenient. Furthermore, he said he had been chipping pennies, dimes and dollars into Foreign Missions ever since he could remember, and that he'd like to look into the missionary's game on his own account.

"I told him the plan looked seraphic to me; we'd be just like a pair of 'Heavenly Twins' the next day. I knew that you were stopping at the Imperial over there, and I suggested we look in at the hotel and take you along if you were loose for the day and wanted to go.