Our Chinese Acquaintance

We met him in the runway called a street, between the warrens known as houses. He looked still the same, but his French-cut tweeds, his continental hat, and small round glasses were alien here. About him we felt a troubled uncertainty.

He greeted us gladly. "It is good," he said in his soft French, "to see my foreign friends again. You find our city dirty I am sure. On every stone dirt grows in China. How the people crowd! The street is choked. No jee ba! Go away, curious ones! The ladies cannot breathe.... No, my people are not clean. They do not understand, I think. In Belgium where I studied— ... Yes, I was studying in Bruges, studying Christianity, when the great war came. We, you know, love peace. I could not see....

"So I came home.

"But China is very dirty.... Our priests are rascals, and the people ... I do not know.

"Is there, perhaps, a true religion somewhere? The Greeks died too—and they were clean." Behind his glasses his slant eyes were troubled. "I do not know," he said.