Anthony the Absolute. Samuel Merwin

it up.”

      “Very,” I replied.

      “And what is all this?” He was looking at my boxes, in the arms of the boy at my elbow. “Purchases? Here?”

      “That is my phonograph,” I explained, quite unnecessarily.

      “Your what?” He said this much as Crocker had said it.

      “My phonograph,” I repeated.

      He stood looking at me, with knit brows. Then, “Ah, ha!” he said, musing. “So that was it! I could n't explain that music—hours of it—and the repetitions. I begin to see. You are the authority on Oriental music.”

      I bowed coldly.

      Sir Robert began smiling—an old man's smile. I started down the stairs, but he kept at my side.

      We went on to the outer door together without a word, and waited while the boy called rickshaws for us. I looked at Sir Robert. He was still smiling.

      “Let me congratulate you,” he said then, rather dryly. And his left eyelid drooped in what was grotesquely like a wink. “You have the distinction, I believe, of being quite the most practical man in the world. You will go far.”

      Thank God, the rickshaw is the most unsociable of vehicles. Each of us stepped into his own and rolled away through a dim street bordered by rows of gay paper lanterns, which were lighted now.

      As my rickshaw turned the corner, we nearly collided head on with another one. By the light of the lanterns I made out its occupant—the fat vaudeville manager from Cincinnati.

      He waved a cheerful hand at me as we passed.

      “Number Nine?” he called.

      “Number Nine,” I replied. I felt depressed and ashamed; but he took it very easily.

      I have, however, confirmed a conclusion tonight, so the experience has its value. I shall push on to China, where the ancient music may still be caught in its pure form, uncorrupted and unconfused by the modern touch. For my purposes, time spent in Japan would be wasted. And I shall hurry past the treaty ports to Peking. The treaty ports, they tell me, are not really Chinese at all. For that matter, how could they be?