Standing on the Bund waiting for a tram which had apparently succumbed to sunstroke further up the line, I took a malicious plea-j sure in picking out those who looked even warmer than I, while on the other hand those who rolled by in motors, carrying their breezes along with them, regarded me pityingly.
Near-cool air currents from the Huangpu drew refreshingly down the cross street and many a sweating coolie shifted the rope over hig! shoulder or dropped his load to! take a moment's comfort in this oasis of semi-comfort. All round the curb men were sitting, brownly naked to their waists, blue-breeched to the knees. Some gasped for air, others nodded off into} that easy sleep which seems never far distant from Chinese eyelids.
There was a hydrant on this corner which fulfilled all the functions of bath-tub, shower, swimming poo! and bubble fountain. A limping ricsha coolie washed his tired feet, a policeman strolled over to dash water over his face and hands, a coolie filled his tattered straw hat with water and emptied it_over himself as he put it on amid the jeers of his audience. All the tram workers looked upon this hydrant as their special fountain and some of the more! daring drank the water, since there was no tea kong in sight. As for the youngsters who pushed each other under the torrent or played in the gutter freshets, who knows but what in after life a fund of sentimental reminiscences may as-societe themselves with the hydrant. instead of the much-lauded swimming hole?
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.