I believe one feels the heat here more than in any other city- in the world, yet the people follow their ordinary occupations,. eat roast teef and steak and kidney pudding, go to office during the heat of the day in linen collars, play tennis, get married, and conduct themselves generMly as if this were London in May.

Last Thursday I met George Lassing, who was passing through to Japan. He came ashore in evening dress and a single collar, and showed him round After we had seen all that was worth seeing, and a lot that wasn't, he was a lirnp wreck; his collar lay down on his coat like an "Eton," and his shirt front resembled a dish-cloth. Going off. to his ship in a sainpan, he said:

"And you live here, eb, Denby?"
"I do," I replied.
"Why?"

I thought hard for two minutes, but had to confess in the end that I didn't know the answer, and I've thought since, but I haven't got it yet. I must confess that I, personally, feel that the attraction is less since the rubber boom collapsed and the Russo-Japanese War came to an end.

It is particularly rough on a man living in a place like this and having hosts of friends who look him up at short intervals whilst they are travelling round the world.

You have to show them round, and at about 3 a.m. they ask you where you propose to spend the rest of the evening. They can lie back the next morning and sleep, but you have to work all day, holding your throbbing head and trying to remember how you managed to spend the best part of a month's salary in about eight hours, and where you lost the left tail of your dress coat.

It is a mistaken idea to suppose that the East-even if the birthplace of original sin- still allows it greater freedom than the West; yet such is the idea of most male tourists, aud they insist upon dragging you out to sh6w them your local dissipations.

What desperate efforts we do make to beautify our iniquities with the rosy glow of wine! Yet we invariably come back to our early monung gallop in the fresh, sweet air, or our before breakfast swim, and thus realize that the world is a beautiful garden in which to stand with one's arms upstretched to the sun and shout for the joy of health.

But again, if we never had a wild night or a headache, and had never been bored to semi- consciousness by vacuous remarks, or stiffered in powerless sympathy with the strained, pathetic gaiety of tired women with unhealthy eyes and drawn, painted cheeks, perchance our sombre contrast would no longer throw up the really beautiful into sharp relief-and we have stich short memories.

Perhaps my moodiness is partly accounted for by the fact that I am suffering from the after-effects of a Chinese dinner, or chow-chow. I have attended a big dinner at home, and felt bilious next day, but after this Chinese horror I feel that I shall notice the effects for the rest of my life. No foreign medicine can cope with the mass of garbage, both cooked and raw, that I was compelled to swallow.

My companion who induced me to attend this function is a well-known business man, and it was necessary for him to attend for business reasons. I think myselt looking back upon what occurred, that he had made a lot of money out of his Chinese host, and that the Chinaman was having his revenge. Of course you will say, "Why did you not give every dish a miss in baulk?" I will explain.

The man who accompanied me impressed me with the fact that the dinner cost a lot of money, and that it was very uncomplimentary to the host not to eat. That is where they have you, and that is why I have a mouth like the waste- pipe of a kitchen sink, and see airballs every time I look at the sky.

The initial horror of the affair was en- countered on the way to the restaurant. We started along Nanking Road in 'rickshas, and I had visions of going to a Chinese garden, sitting out under the stars, absorbing local colour, enjoying quaint dishes, and generally making a nodding acquaintance with some of the mysteries of the East about which I could, in afterlife, lie fearlessly to my friends at home.

The first disillusion occurred when we were half way along Nanking Road, where my 'ricksha, folIowing my companion's, turned down a narrow, noisy, dirty little street.

" Hi! " I shouted after him, "where on eaith are you going?"

"It's all right," he replied over his shoulder.

"All right! " I yelled, with my handkerchief to my nose, "you surely don't mean to try and get me to eat anything down this sewer?"

"jit's better further along," he replied, and with this I was forced to be content.

Each narrow street in a Chinese district is characterized by its own smell, which is lidded in by overhanging roofs from opposite buildings and confined by huge, hanging signs slung cross- wise. Each portion of that street has its own characteristic variation on the main scheme of stink, like divisions in a Neapolitan ice.

The local inhabitants do not require or cultivate any sense of direction: they find their way about from earliest infancy by the sense of smell.

Eventually, after going about a mile through an atmosphere which reminded me of the back staircase of a half-crown Soho restaurant at dinner-time, and that would be a paradise to any one interested in the theory of germs, we stopped opposite a building having more gold paint, carving, and dirt upon it than any I bad previously seen. We entered, and my companion handed the attendant two slips of paper with Chinese characters upon them. The attendant then bowed, shook bands with himself, and showed us inside.

A Chinarnan probably shakes hands with him- self because he is the only person he knows that he can be thoroughly sure of.

We passed through a stone courtyard where they store the vegetables that have gone bad (nothing is ever thrown away here) and upstairs into the front room. There we found four Chinese who appeared delighted to see us, and were very polite and very, very greasy.

After eating some nuts and seeds that you have to crack with your teeth-though why, I fail to see, since there is nothing inside them- we sat down at the table.

In the centre were dishes containing shelled pigeon's eggs swimming in some stuff I cannot be sure of, but fancy must have been vaseline. little cubes of pork surrounded by what appeared to be chickweed, and other delicacies I cannot even guess at. One dish, however, caught my eye and held it. Lying right in the middle of the table, surrounded by stewed grass- hoppers, were some eggs cut in half, with black yolks. I asked my. companion why they dyed their eggs.

"Dyed?" he replied; "those aren't dyed, the colour comes with age."

"But what are they here for? " I enquired.

" The Chinese eat them."

Something turned over in my stomach, and I had to grip the chair.

"Good-night," I said, and was half way out of my seat before he could stop me; but it was useless. He begged me, for the sake of our friendship, to resume my place. I asked him whether he had considered our friendship when he invited me to this culinary practical joke, but he exetised himself upon the plea that he tbought I should be interested. I told him that I might be interested if I didn't feel so damnably sick, and he advised me to try to think of something else, but I couldn't-those eggs, lying there naked and shamelessly exposed, fascinated me.

To make matters worse, just at that moment a Chinese stretched out a claw with two sticks held in the talons and gripped the most disgusting egg on the dish. I shut my eyes and counted twenty. The Chinaman on my left must have noticed something, for he explained that many foreigners wondered why they kept their eggs to a ripe old age, and yet they-the foreigners~te cheese in an advanced stage of decomposition£ I explained that cheese was cheese always, but that eggs, after the copy- right expired, became a public nuisance; yet he couldn't see the point somehow.

He argued that an egg, after it had died, stunk with all its might for a few months, and then resumed its odourless state from sheer exhaustion and became beautiful once again; whereas cheese gathered strength and energy to stink with a continually increasing violence as time elapsed.

What is the use of arguing with a benighted savage like that?

And again, he is quite right; so I smiled in a superior way and changed the subject, trusting to luck that he would think I had several other arguments with which to confound him, but mercifully refrained from using them out of politeness.

The next course consisted of a brown ball of something in a Httle dish, surrounded. by a lot of green something else. I was about to take the brown thing, drop it on the floor and put my foot on it, when I caught the host's eyes fixed. on me, so I had to put the stuff in my mouth. Then I bit it. It was pure pork fat!

When I recovered consciousness, a man was bringing round what I at first took to be about seven pounds of steaming tripe in his hands, seeing which I staggered to my feet, deter- mined to fight my way out if necessary, but to my unsijeakable reliefs it turned out to be a bunch of hot, wet towels. Each man took one and wiped his face. This wo~d be a splendid custom to introduce into Europe-for the nien-and is very refreshing; but I couldn't help wondering who had been using mine before my turn came.

Duiing the dinner they gave us Chinese wine. It is served in special metal cups, probably because it would corrode ordinary glass. The flavour is somewhat similar to that of mixed crude petroleum and petrol, but is far more potent, and tastes like one of those buzzy things the dentists use to take the tartar off your teeth.

After the others had finished eating, six sing- song girls made their appearance; for the custom here is for a diner to send for one of these entertainers after dinner to sing to him. They have their "amahs" (or duennas) with them, and one or two musicians.

They were all beautifufly dressed in elaborate flowered-satin coats, and mine wore pink silk trousers trimmed with frilling, but her face was one of the most careless pieces of work I have ever seen. I felt convinced that had I dug my finger into her cheek the impress would remain as in dough, and longed to make the experi- ment.

All had small feet, the result of tightly binding them in linen from babyhood, which had the effect of making them walk like automatic dolls; for their feet are mere stumps, without muscular play.

Seeing a small-footed woman walk always gives me that creepy feeling of the skin which one associates with shrimps crawling up one's spine, for I cannot disabuse my mind of the impression that every step causes her pain; though, of course, such is not the case.

I turned to the moon-faced maiden who had taken up her position on a stool behind my chair, and was about to ask her whether she had been to any dances lately, or engage her in some equally inane conversation such as is expected of one on these occasions, when she looked me squarely in the eye, made a horrible face, and let out a yell that detached a piece of plaster from the ceiling, which fell to the floor with a crash.

Jumping from my seat, I yelled to my friend to get some brandy.

"What do you want brandy for?" he screamed.

"Look! " I shouted, pointing to the girl, "she's got some female complaint, and got it badly."

" Don't be an ass," he roared, "she's sing- ing"; and glancing around at my feflow-guests, I was astonished to observe that they listened to her hysterical screams unmoved-nay, if any- thing, they appeared to enjoy them.

That was my first experience of Chinese vocal music. It is worse than a grarnophone

The Chinese each held the left hand of one of these apparitions and smiled a beatific smile.

At irregular intervals, and without the slightest warning, one of them would let out a screech like a girl who has found a beetle in her bed. I held the bejewelled fore-limb of the lady who had overstrained her pharynx under the mis- apprehension that she was entertaining me, and wondered, not without some trepidation, what was going to happen next; but I couldn't smile, because I was uncertain whether I was going to be ill again.

However, even a Chinese dinner comes to an end, and I eventually returned home and wrote a letter to the man who had invited me, telling him I should hold him resp~sible if anything serious happened to me, and asking him to be kind enough to keep out of my way for a week.

How I envy you your week ends up the river, with a lobster sakd, a bottle of bubbly, and a fruit salad off the ice!

Your affectionate son,
JIM

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