HONGKONG HOTEL

Dunstan Times, Issue 2676, 28 July 1913, Page 2

HONGKONG HOTEL

By Cliarlio

There wore rattan lialf-doors, above ami below which smoko-smothered light poured out into the street. A saloon and hoarding house for sailors evidently, run by a Chinaman-—not a proper place for a young man in immaculate evening clothes, with two or three thousand yen in his wallet. What impelled Arthur to touch the coolie lie nevu- could tell. The coolie shook his head. “Go hack show-show!” Yesterday Arthur would have agreed with alacrity. He hated the proximity of the sordid. All his life lie had been home far above it. Ho was as dainty in his choice of amusements as a woman —pictures, honks, old jewels, rugs; it was the beautv of the inanimatn that held him: humanity, with its comedies and tragedies, surged and rolled past him, unnoted in detail, The sudden craving to see the lowest order of Ids kind was as inexplicable to him as the recurrence of the word Shucks! Firmly he grasped his cano and pushed through the swingdoors. ITT. Oncu acrojs* iho uiivdiokl, however, m.-, curiosity, ins craving—whatever n was —aOaten, leaving liun with a sense of .shame, nut m Imviug oil lured but .in wanting to back out. Hiu smoko | wat, a.s Hack as tlio winter dunlogs in tile itajputana, valleys — almost as bitterly aor id., tor the gods alone know what mo sailors smoko ni the name of tobacco! indeed it was less like gazing tiirough log and more like peering into an acquanum where, from out or strange nooks and coruors, mol ion less iisli evilly returned one's astonished gaze. in olio corner an oil lamp was smoking vilely, tlio chimney already black with sum. At the ieU was a bar presided, over by a goggled Chinaman on a nigh stool. A wuito woman was work.ng Urn beerpumps wearily and usticssiy. A swart-visaged man —also us ties, —in a ainy apron, was tilling empty gin bottles. LiSidessuess seemed to bo the epitome of expression here; sometimes it might give way co a hare of lienzy, deadly or innocuous, but the dull eye, the didoping mouth, tlio dank hair, these were representative. At the right were several cables set against the wad; and abuui these sat Charlie’s pa.runs, a lew bedraggled feathers — nia.i bo a laded rosette—to relievo the nuiiiutoiiy el rusty black bolt. Mo trig man-o’-war’s-meii patronised tho Hongkong Jlntel; sailors from craft as shiftless and disreputable as themselves foregathered in this place. "Hi! See oo's ’ere!” piped a cockney voice. “Alymie, it’s ch’ juke!” “Sure it’s the juke! What will you chaps have to drink ?” “A real toff, Aiyniie!” There arc two individualities in every man. Thus tho disembodied Arthur Wells Wilmot hovered in terror over tho smiling physical Arthur Wells Wilmot who could not have told you, for the life of him, why ho replied to,tho cockney in the phraseology of his order; why ho brought forth a sovereign and spun it on tho cherry hnrtup. Perhaps a nebulous recollection of some page in a novel suggested to Wilmot the attitude, which was sportsmanlike in the extreme. Several of the men, including the cockney, pushed back their chairs and shuli'led over. A tourist who had dined well and was out for a good time on his own —it was not an isolated case. Half a dozen rounds, ns many jests and questions'—and out of their orbit ho would go. For himself Arthur ordered a bottle of soda. Ho was holding up his glass in acknowledgment of tho cockney’s “ ’lire’s ’mvl” when the half-doors swung in violently and a. woman pitched headlong to the Hour. She was immediately followed by a hulking brute of a, man with gin-bloated face, .shoulders like a caryatid, and enormous hands covered with a mass of bristling, porcine red hair. Ho kicked tho woman. “ ’Old out on me, will yer? ’Oiler abaht rent, will yer? I’ll give yer wet’s wot!” And he kicked her again. The disembodied Arthur fled tho scene and left tho other to his fate. Arthur set down his glass. In Balzac and in Zola lie had read of suck

things, but ho did not dream they existed outside books. He felt a hand on his arm. “Don't mind ’im;” warned, the cockney. “ ’E’s Big Bill Mullins, cx’oavywyte. 'ill's always beatiu’ 7 er up w’en ’is skin’s full. ’S all in the 1 gyme!” 1 “Do you stand for this?” hotly. I “We has to! Bill ’as th’ kick of a ! mule iu ’is tootsies. Stick t’ yor ' sody.” ! “I’m damned if 1 do!” And Arj thur, for all the world like one of tbos„ i impeccable heroes in Broadway melo- ; drama, Hung off the friendly hand and ! faced the bully. “Hero, you big brute, leave the woman alone!” “Co V you?” roared Mullins. “She’s my woman —kick ’er ’s much ’s 1 please!” Ho administered another kick to prove his authority. Now Arthur was not athletic —very far from it. The only physical exercise ho took was fencing, and that only because in Paris it was the fashion to play with buttoned foils. But clecu down below there were wholesome rea corpuscles, the gift of his paternal forbears, a race of fearless fighting men bulldog in tenacity. He quickly shifted Ids cane to his left hand and struck with Ids right. Perhaps Mars, who referees all combats —even the lowest —■ guided that blow. It struck the bully on the point of Jus chin. It was not a knock-out blow; it simply toppled the recipient to the floor and he rolled under the table. Charlie slid off his stool; the &wartvisa ged bar-tender philosophically picked up a mallet; while the barmaid leaned indifferently against the mirrored sideboard. It was all in a day’s “Hike!” hissed the cockney. “E’ll kill yor w’en ’e gits up!” Instead Arthur picked up the poor outcast and seated her in a chair. She dropped her head upon her arms, sobbing. “Mind yer block!” Arthur turned just in time. The blow took the skin off his wrist. Instinctively lie dropped his cane and hit bade. What followed he never could relate with anv coherency. For one thing and of this lie entertained no doubt — he was soundly wolloped; but be gave almost as good as he got. All at once he found himself by the half-doors, the woman and the cockney propelling him outward. Back in the middle of the room ho saw a confusion of forms. Charlie did not love the Japanese police; and Mullins, resenting interference, had gone berserker. The melee had become general. “Run!” said the woman. “Bill 11 kill you! You meant all right, but you've only got me another kickin’ ’E ain’t bad w’en ’o’s sober.” She urged him along. Stubbornly he held back. The cockney pushed. “F’ God’s syke, don’t he a bloomin' jjut! Yer put up a tidy little mill, but Vll break ver this time. Rickshaw! Rickshaw!”' he bawled, giving an extra heave which sent Arthur to the sidewalk. “’S a wonder yer alive! My, j, I)vhv knows more abaht ’eldin’ up is ’is jukes. Pure luck, blyme me! Run ’oiiio t’ mommy! There’s a good toff, Soak yer ’end and drink polly f’r breaki’ns.” . Arthur dug his hand into his. pocket and brought out a fistful of com, and there was a glint of gold among the silver pieces. “Here, take. this!”, ho said to the woman, and climbed into the rickshaw. “That’ll carry you.out of his roach.” . „ , He turned to the friendly cockney “I left a cano hack there. Keep it. The head is worth a collide of quid. ’ Tie said this over his shoulder, for the coolie had witnessed enough. Ho lodged it up the street with the .speed of a pony, and never stopped till, he reached the side entrance of the Oriental Palace Hotel. “Give the boy a sovereign, said Arthur to the distracted porter, who gave the coolie five yon and mentally wrote down. “To one sovereign.” and so on. Arthur walked groggily over to the mirror above the porter’s washstand. Ye gods, if mama and aunty and .tie good' grandmother could see precious now! IT a Mess, collar torn open, tin bosom of his shirt a butcher’s apron his left eye tightly closed, his nose prominent enough to satisfy the nmrt exacting physiognomist, his lips nepron in thickness, aching from his shins tr in thickness, aching from his shins to his cranial hones. Arthur hugged his potted tree and called the porter; “Got n hat and coat that I can put on?” The porter surrendered his own mufti. “Thanks- What time is it. “A quarter to ten, sir.” And all this had happened since eh'ht-thirtv. Arthur squinted at his knuckles, split and throbbing. Strange but ho did: not feel at all like going to hod. There was pain everywhere save in his hack, which he had not volunWarily presented to Mullins; but, for ai. that', he experienced, a giddy exhilaration unlike anything he had ever known before. He had punched and been punched, savagely, primordially, in a tavern brawl. , She said something about pain and obstacle, but he was quite certain that this was not what she had meant. He laughed and marched down the corridor! As lie passed the billiard room he dimly saw Chadwick in his shirt-sleeves, executing a difficult shot. Arthur went on —out into the lobby. The guests still idling about looked at him. m amazement—and sadly misjudged him Arthur had been cheated out of his soda even. , . •\s a matter of fact, however, he wardrunk ; but it was on a spiritual kind of wine—a rate old vintage out of which the cork of repression and dilettantism had been yanked with a violent pop! He was wondering not how mama would take it when she heard, hut. wha T the food old pater would have said. Ho had some difficulty in finding the steps, for his right eye was beginning to bother him. Bath-hot water and a good long soak. Ho saw the light over the transom of Kate’s door, and then suddenly she opened her door into the hall. “Good Heavens!” breathed Kate slowly, but with a certain grimness. “No, no!” lie pleaded. “I have ..ot been drinking.” “Then what have you been doing What is the matter? Where have you been ?” “Well, you told me to go out and break something. So I did.” The Wilmot. not the Wells, spoke then; for the Wells rarely condescended to joke. ‘.‘Arthur Wilmot!” —horrified. “Arthur Wilmot it is. Won’t you he a good Samaritan and patch me up?” “But what has happened?” He told her lightly, with a twist of humor of which she had not supposed him capable. “And you did that?” “I. Arthur W. Wilmot!. You’d bet ter hurry. The curtain is falling on the second act” —indicating his one available eve, out of which whimsically gleamed Old Man Wilmot. “Perhaps you’d better Call your aunt.” Bho looked at him strangely. Another woman could have told him what that lock meant. “No; I’m not my brother’s sister for nothing. Patching up is an old story to me. Stand there for just a moment-. I’ll bring the things out into the hall. And von went out and did this ” “Well, perhaps,” he interrupted tactfully, setting down the potted tree. She brought out a. chair; then went back into the room again and returned with bottles and cotton and cambric elusive! v fragrant with garden lavender. After his money! Middle-class! The hall light was directly above. And from the skilled and : delicate touch of her fingers the most delicious cur-

rents of electricity seemed to flow, causing his lie art to beat so furiously that lie grew faint. And she on her part did what she had airways been longing to do —surreptitiously ran her Ungers through his hair! Swiftly she set the chair and the bottles inside the room. ‘‘You poor, foolish boy! That will take care of you till morning. Good night!” “Kate!” Blindly he caught at her hands. '‘Could Would it be possible for you ever to Jove a poor, useless mollycoddle like me?” She withdrew her hands quickly. Like the wings of a bird they flew iu his cheeks and, fluttered there. And swifter still she drew his head toward her and kissed him on the tip of ni* bruised nose—and was gone!