Stan Lynn: A Boy's Adventures in China

“Behave properly! Oh, come! this is rich. Here’s a boy who ought to be at school, where he would get the cane if he did not behave himself, vapouring about as if he had come to be master here. There! the sooner we understand each other the better – Mr Stanley – sir.”

There was a mocking sarcasm in the delivery of these last words that made the boy writhe. But he mastered his temper bravely enough, and said coolly:

“I don’t want to be called ‘Mr Stanley’ and ‘sir.’ I was christened Stanley, but my friends looked upon it as being too pretentious. They always call me Stan.”

“Oh, I see! Thank you for the kind explanation,” said the manager sarcastically. “Well, here you are; and now you are here, what do you want? I see you’ve brought a gun. Come snipe and duck shooting?”

“My father has fully explained in his letter, I believe.”

“Explained? Perhaps so; but I have not had time to read it yet, so perhaps you will speak.”

“That is easily done. You wrote to the firm asking for help and companionship.”

“Of course I did; and I took it for granted that Mr Jeffrey Lynn would come and share the burden of my enormously increasing work.”

“It is all explained in the letters, as I told you,” said Stan. “Uncle was coming, but the Chinese made an attack on the place.”

“Eh? What’s that?” cried the manager excitedly; and Stan gave him a brief account of what had passed, while every word was listened to eagerly.

“It was quite out of the question for my father to be left,” ended Stan at last, “and so I am sent to help instead.”

“Humph!” said the manager, looking grave. “It has come to that, has it? Restless, uncontrolled savages. Well,” he added, changing his tone again, “so they’ve sent a boy like you?”

“Yes.”

“And for want of decent help and companionship, I’m to make the best of you?”

“I suppose so,” said Stan coldly, and wishing the while that he was back at Hai-Hai, home, or anywhere but at this solitary hong.

“But I don’t think you’ll like the life here, young fellow,” said the manager, with an unpleasant smile. “There’s a very savage, piratical lot of Chinese about on this river. It has an awful character. If you’ll take my advice – Will you?”

“Of course,” said Stan quietly. “You must know better, from your experience here, than I do.”

“That’s right; I do. Well, then, you take it: go back by the next boat. It doesn’t look as if things are very safe at Hai-Hai, but it’s a paradise to this place here.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Stan, “but I certainly can’t go back; I have come to stay.”

“Oh, very well!” said the manager. “I’ve warned you. I wash my hands of the whole affair. But I’ll promise you this: I’ll get your remains together.”

“My remains?” said Stan, aghast.

“Of course; they are sure to hack you to pieces – it’s a way they have. And there’ll be some difficulty, perhaps, in recovering your head. They generally carry that off as a trophy; but I’ll do my best to get you back to the old folks in a cask of Chinese palm-spirit. Will that do?”

During the past few moments Stan had felt a sensation as if cold steel of wondrously sharp edge were at work upon his back and across his neck; but the tone of the question brought him back to himself, and he replied calmly:

“Capitally. But, by the way, if the savage pirates come and treat me like that, where will you be?”

“Eh?” said the manager, staring. “Where shall I be?”

“Yes. Isn’t it just as likely that I should have to do this duty for you?”

“Oh, I see! Yes, of course; but – Ha, ha, ha! Come! you have got something in you after all. You are pretty sharp.”

“Just sharp enough to see that you are trying to frighten me.”

“Humph!” ejaculated the manager, with a dry smile. “But you’ve had a sample of what these people can do, and I won’t answer for it that they don’t try some of their capers here. Then you mean to risk it?”

“Of course,” said Stan. “My father and uncle sent me to help you.”

“Well, don’t blame me if you get your head taken off.”

“No,” said Stan coolly, and with a peculiar smile; “I don’t think I shall do that – then.”

“More do I,” said the manager grimly. “Well, here you are, and I suppose I must make the best of you.”

“I suppose so,” said Stan.

“You’ll have to work pretty hard – make entries and keep the day-book. I suppose you can do that?”

“I suppose so,” said the lad, “but I can’t say for certain till I try.”

“All right; then the sooner you try the better, because I’ve got enough to do here in keeping things straight; and if you find that you can’t, I shall just pack you off back to your father and uncle. You’re too young, and not the sort of chap I should have chosen for the job.”

“Indeed! What sort of a lad would you have chosen?”

“Oh, not a dandified, pomatumed fellow like you, who is so very particular about his collar and cuffs, and looks as if he’d be afraid to dirty his hands.”

“I don’t see that because a fellow is clean he is not so good for work,” said Stan.

“Oh, don’t you? Well, I’ve had some experience, my lad. I want here a fellow who knows how to rough it. You don’t.”

“But I suppose I can learn.”

“Learn? Of course you can, but you won’t. There! you’ve come, and I suppose, as I said before, I must make the best of you; but next time you see the heads of the firm, perhaps you’ll tell them that I don’t consider it part of my business as manager of this out-of-the-way place to lick their cubs into shape.”

“Hadn’t you better write and tell them so?” said the lad warmly.

“What!” roared the man. “Now just look here, young fellow; you and I had better come to an understanding at once. Whether it’s clerk, warehouseman, or Chinese coolie, I put up with no insolence. It’s a word and a blow with me, as sure as my name’s Sam Blunt.”

“Sam!” said the lad quietly. “What a name! Why did your people christen you that?”

The manager tilted his stool back till he could balance himself on two of its legs and let his head rest against the whitewashed wall of the bare-looking office, staring in astonishment at his visitor. Then leaning forward again, he came down on all four legs of his tall stool, caught up the big ebony ruler, and brought it down with a fresh bang upon the desk, which made the ink this time jump out of the little well in a fountain, as he stared fiercely at the lad, who returned his gaze perfectly unmoved.

“Well, of all,” – he said; he did not say what, but kept on staring.

“What sort of a fellow do you call yourself?” he cried at last.

“I don’t know,” was the cool reply.