My companion was a straw that I had clutched at eagerly. To be with him was in itself a change from the everyday life and inevitable. people of the little colony. He held the post of English master at the Chinese College. He had filled various scholastic posts, beginning at a first-class preparatory school in England, then on to other preparatory schools of dimi-rushing repute, then out to India to teach the sons of a native prince, and finally to his last appointuient at the Chinese College, where he seemed to have anchored contentedly. He was not liked in the colony and had been excluded from the club, but these facts troubled him little.
I can seo him now as we sat on the deck of the pleasure steamer Wing Mei, which was taking us to Macao. His large beak nose and face were a mottled red, his mouth most humorous; he had brown eyes, dark and pathetic as those of an Irish terrier, but pre-eminently human; they flashed his thoughts involuntarily, now shadowed some memory of the past, now twinkling with appreciation; they seemed at war with his hair, which was beginning to grizzle; contrast. to it they formed a tragedy. It was hard to realise he had been for twenty years schoolmaster. He had deep-rooted in him a love of life, which accounted for the disfavour in which he was held by the colony, and perhaps for other things which it would be an impertinence to refer to here. He had read considerably, and took a deep interest in home affairs, which was odd for a man who had been in China so many years. I asked him once if he did not want to go back to England. He said he would like to, but could not afford the passage at present. I was surprised, for I thought the salary of an English master at the Chinese College was good.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.