"Shanghai," said the fellow who lounged beside me in his long deck chair. "Lively spot, believe me. Get all the bright lights you want there, miy lad."
Plenty of bright spots, 1 suppose?" I replied. "Night life and that sort of thing?"
ton of it," he averred. "Gayest city in the East, You'll like itt"
With his last remark I reserved judgment until I should have had an opportunity of seeing for myself the city that for ast had been known as the "Paris of the East."
We landed in time for afternoon' tea, which one of my fellow passengers suggested should be token in his hotel, after which we: would dine and join up for a spot, wild night The hotel where we tead might have been taken out of any great, ropean city and transplanted kedily to Shanghai. About us we sew a well dressed, animated and carefree crowd. Travellers from Europe rubbed shoulders with those from the new World, while locals shrugged condescendingly as they listened to their visitors recounting various incidents in their tours.
"Above the buzz of conversation rose the notes of the band rendering. soft melodies, and catchy sparkling. dance music.
'We must, our host insisted, sce that very night, so' that ossians would remain as nearly indelible as impressions can. He, therefore, having become quite pally with the chief lounge boy, would escort us around all the night clubs which the boy. had listed for him, He proposed midnight as a suitable time for the expedition to, Eight o'clock found us eating a cheery dinner at the hotel, where the band played, dancers danced, and some excellent liqueurs pat us in the right humour for the coming trip.
midnight a car had dropped a cabaret a couple of miles from the centre of the city. Bright lights greeted us from afar, and as we Crew nearer we made out the notes the band. On entering the dance hall I saw such a bevy of youth and beauty as I fear never to see agai Girls sat in front of us, behind us, and about us. Slim, silk-clad legs flushed from every angle of the creature who had tugged at the shafts of my ricsha "You need not waur that look of With which the trite request's deni do not seck to beg oF borres.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.