I92 THE PEARL TRADER
a
man of innate force and strength, and of superior intelligence, one
within whom the idealist was battling fiercely and continually with the
grosser passions.
He
handed me his business card. I asked him to be seated and to partake of
tea. When he had presented his credentials and stated his case, I had
learned that he had been established in business in Canton and Hong
Kong and had failed, that he had got another start as agent for a big
London firm, for whom he had been doing well until Doctor Sun Yat Sen,
who had known him from youth, bade him relinquish the pursuit of money
to devote his life to the great cause which the ex-President of China
had so deeply at heart. The Doctor had carried him off his feet. He had
given up the agency in order to take up the duties of secretary to the
self-styled President of South China. But the President of South China
had small funds at his disposal just then, and frequently his
secretary's wages were not forthcoming. Doctor Sun Yat Sen himself, at
that time, my visitor told me, owned only one pair of boots—those he
wore—and could not understand why Hung, his secretary, should be
anxious to secure creature comforts beyond those that contented his
chief. So with great regret Hung had left the cause to return to
commerce.
My
visitor knew the business that had brought me to Hong Kong, and since
on two previous occasions he had for a short time been employed by
Amsterdam diamond merchants as interpreter, he was quite sure he could
render me good service. He was quite willing to be paid by results,
that is by the customary commission on all business introduced by him.
But I said that if the references he could furnish proved satisfactory,
I would make him not merely my interpreter, but my compradore. However,
I was at present minus an office and it did not seem likely that I
should be suited in that way for some weeks to come.
"Leave
this matter to me, sir," he said. And when he had written out the names
of the Chinese and European merchants in town to whom I could refer, he
bowed himself out.
His references proved excellent, and before noon next day
