The doctor had told me that convalescence had its compensations. One could get out in the sunshine and go down by the sea and feel strength creeping back—absorb it from nature as it were. I took it the the first place Shanghai had) practically forgotten' that the sun ever. shows in the heavens. "In the' second place the sea is yellow and ugly, In the third place I didn't} want: to commune nature, 1 wanted to-do my convalescing. around a hot water bottle and five sown pillows, Nevertheless I pried myself loose from the radiator and Grove down to Woosung. The road jolted my almost fleshless bones! until they clicked together like the: family skeleton doing a dance in the closet, I got out and sat on a gray rock and skipped a pebble into the! muddy sea, Fully equipped to be as miserable as possible, both. mentally and physically, I felt a distinct shade of annoyance a3 I saw decidedly massive and what, promised to be. a jovial figure approaching, His hair, although grey, was forbiddingly reminiscent of ved around the edges, and he Tooked as though he wanted to talk. T didn't, "Pin Captain Davies.
murmured my name and Captain Davies selected another rock equally grey and desolate as the one upon which. I perched.
"How're the roads out here?"
"Rotten!" T could be emphatic on "Y'm shaken to told them not to build those roads running north and south."
My curiosity was aroused in spite of myself and J asked his reason, "Well, the earth turns East, and 'West this time of the year and the roads are bound to get corrugated when they're pulled in the wrong direction, Any other season wouldn't matter so much but when its muddy, and cold they don't have much give.' Tt would have been better to make longer roads running around the other direction, Folks like a long Sunday drive anyway. Mak Aittle hotel all the more when they get here."
T laughed in spite of myself., The soa became golden instead of yellow yock upon which I sat be-
"So you're the man who owns this: hotel?"
"Yes.—I've got May Ling, General] Chiang Kai-shek's wife upstairs asleep now, Says she can't sleep Shanghai, Too noisy. Guess kind of worried about the 1 too. I told him to put his foot down and be firm. You've got to be firm with the kind of people he's dealing with. It don't do. to be too lenient, The General's proving a little though. Someday he'll take my advice and China will be run as it ought."
What do you think he ought to do first?"
Male me peesdent of Chin."
"Yoh—I'd straighten this country] out in a hurry. It would take me just two years to put this country on a peaceful, efficient basis. One that would work."
don't know how many Chinese soldiers there are in this country but T suppose there are a more or less. What would you do with them? Maintain them as a standing army?"
"Not all of them, no, I'd send] over to England and get five hundred army men,—men who know yar and military tactics and how to run an army. None of these Chinese play-captains for my army! And after I had them over here give them 250,000 soldiers and let them go ahead and make an army out of them."
"That still leaves us 750,000 of our hypothetical million to dispose of, What'll we do with the rest?" Already I had made myself copresident of this nation.
"Pd send over to Ireland and get five hundred of the biggest police men they could produce. And when T got them over here I'd make them 'a gift of 250,000 men and tell them 19 organize a police force and send their forces all through the interior of China to see that Law and order:
"we hundred and fifty thousand cops is @ somewhat terrifying idea.
Ht might work." I agreed to try] it out at least.
"Then," said Captain Davies, "'d} turn all' the rest of them over to five hunted tough American railroad engineers. I'd make the organize road camps and section gangs and, go about building this} country up. I'd soon have China crisscrossed with railroads ~and highways instead of isolation. I'dj the Chinese get acquainted with themselves and each other. Td make travel, culture, progress, and ideas easy. People only fight when they get bored and haven't anything else to think about.. Td give the Chinese people something to think]
"Some of them seem to think enough already. What about all the War-lords?' What would you do with them?" I ventured timidly. a Palace for them."
"Pd go up to Peking and build modern Palace that could be built. And then I'd invite the whole lot of them to come up and spend.a month in it."
"What for?"
"To talk things over among themselves. I'd give them a month to reach a unanimous agreement as to Just what they should do with them. Selves and their respective powers."
"What if they wouldn't come?"
they'd come. I'd send them one of these forcefully polite invitations. And if they wouldn't I'd send my Irish cops and their satellites after ther "No—And I've prepared for that} emergency, too."
"What 2"
"In case they didn't come to unanimous decision T'd have the Palace fully equiped with gas plugs. Then I'd have a big ball, count the guests to see if they were all there, and turn the gas on. Choke the damn lot of them."
We both stared out at the water in silence, Captain Davies sucked
lords, pipe and buried his Wa "Are you going to rule China all alone, Captain Davies?" I broke into his meditations.
I'm going to have a Parliament." Seventy men and thirty "Don'
you think the men would] object 2"
"What if they did? Did it ever do any man any good to object? Women have always done all the thinking in this world. Men are good at action but you have to hay 'A woman to dive into all the obser nooks and crannies of the mind." dangerous territory. to} T decided change the subject.
"After all it doesn't matter what kind of a Pai you have. You! will be President."
He looked at me and decided 1 needed some ten "and toast with lots of butte "You know," he said as he took my arm to help me up the steps, think Ti have seventy women and only thirty men."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.