A Chicago Princess

CHAPTER IV

I was speedily rowed ashore in a state of great exaltation. The sudden change in my expectations was bewilderingly Eastern in its completeness. The astonishingly intimate companionship of this buoyant, effervescent girl had affected me as did the bottle of champagne earlier in the day. I was well aware that many of my former acquaintances would have raised their hands in horror at the thought of a girl wandering about an Eastern city with me, entirely unchaperoned; but I had been so long down on my luck, and the experiences I had encountered with so-called fashionable friends had been so bitter, that the little finicky rules of society seemed of small account when compared with the realities of life. The girl was perfectly untrained and impulsive, but that she was a true-hearted woman I had not the slightest doubt. Was I in love with her? I asked myself, and at that moment my brain was in too great a whirl to be able to answer the question satisfactorily to myself. My short ten weeks in America had given me no such acquaintance as this, although the two months and a half had cost me fifty thousand dollars a week, certainly the most expensive living that any man is likely to encounter. I had met a few American women, but they all seemed as cold and indifferent as our own, while here was a veritable child of nature, as untrammelled by the little rules of society as could well be imagined. After all, were these rules so important as I had hitherto supposed them to be? Certainly not, I replied to myself, as I stepped ashore.

I climbed the steep hill to my former residence with my head in the air in every sense of the word. Many a weary journey I had taken up that forlorn path, and it had often been the up-hill road of discouragement; but to-night Japan was indeed the land of enchantment which so many romantic writers have depicted it. I thought of the girl and thought of her father, wondering what my new duties were to be. If to-day were a sample of them then truly was Paradise regained, as the poet has it. I had told Mr. Hemster that I needed time to purchase necessary things for the voyage, but this would take me to very few shops. I had in store in Nagasaki a large trunk filled with various suits of clothing, a trunk of that comprehensive kind which one buys in America. This was really in pawn. I had delivered it to a shopkeeper who had given me a line of credit now long since ended, but I knew I should find my goods and chattels safe when I came with the money, as indeed proved to be the case.

It was a great pleasure to meet Yansan once more, bowing as lowly as if I were in truth a millionaire. I had often wondered what would happen if I had been compelled to tell the grimacing old fellow I had no money to pay him. Would his excessive politeness have stood the strain? Perhaps so, but luckily his good nature was not to be put to the test. I could scarcely refrain from grasping his two hands, as Miss Hemster had grasped mine, and dancing with him around the bare habitation which he owned and which had so long been my shelter. However, I said calmly to him:

“Yansan, my ship has come in, as I told you this morning; and now, if you will bring me that bill, errors and all, I will pay you three times its amount.”

Speechless, the old man dropped on his knees and beat his forehead against the floor.

“Excellency has always been too good to me!” he exclaimed.

I tried to induce good old Yansan to share supper with me; but he was too much impressed with my greatness and could do nothing but bow and bow and serve me.

After the repast I went down into the town again, redeemed my trunk and its contents, bought what I needed, and ordered everything forwarded to the yacht before seven o’clock next morning. Then I went to a tea-house, and drank tea, and thought over the wonderful events of the day, after which I climbed the hill again for a night’s rest.

I was very sorry to bid farewell to old Yansan next morning, and I believe he was very sorry to part with his lodger. Once more at the waterside I hailed my sampan-boy, who was now all eagerness to serve me, and he took me out to the yacht, which was evidently ready for an early departure. Her whole crew was now aboard, and most of them had had a day’s leave in Nagasaki yesterday. The captain was pacing up and down the bridge, and smoke was lazily trailing from the funnel.

Arrived on deck I found Mr. Hemster in his former position in the cane chair, with his back still toward Nagasaki, which town I believe he never glanced at all the time his yacht was in harbor. I learned afterward that he thought it compared very unfavorably with Chicago. His unlighted cigar was describing circles in the air, and all in all I might have imagined he had not changed from the position I left him in the day before if I had not seen him leaning over the rail when I escorted his daughter back to the yacht. He gave me no further greeting than a nod, which did not err on the side of effusiveness.

I inquired of the Japanese boy, who stood ready to receive me with all the courtesy of his race, whether my luggage had come aboard, and he informed me that it had. I approached Mr. Hemster, bidding him good-morning, but he gave a side nod of his head toward the Japanese boy and said, “He’ll show you to your cabin,” so I followed the youth down the companion-way to my quarters. The yacht, as I have said, was very big. The main saloon extended from side to side, and was nearly as large as the dining-room of an ocean liner. Two servants with caps and aprons, exactly like English housemaids, were dusting and putting things to rights as I passed through.

My cabin proved ample in size, and was even more comfortably equipped than I expected to find it. My luggage was there, and I took the opportunity of changing my present costume for one of more nautical cut, and, placing a yachting-cap on my head, I went on deck again. I had expected, from all the preparedness I had seen, to hear the anchor-chain rattle up before I was equipped, and feared for the moment that I had delayed the sailing of the yacht; but on looking at my watch as I went on deck I found it was not yet ten o’clock, so I was in ample time, as had been arranged.

I had seen nothing of Miss Hemster, and began to suspect that she had gone ashore and that the yacht was awaiting her return; but a glance showed me that all the yacht’s boats were in place, so if the young woman had indulged in a supplementary shopping-tour it must have been in a sampan, which was unlikely.

The old gentleman, as I approached him, eyed my yachting toggery with what seemed to me critical disapproval.

“Well,” he said, “you’re all fitted out for a cruise, aren’t you? Have a cigar,” – and he offered me his case.

I took the weed and replied:

“Yes, and you seem ready to begin a cruise. May I ask where you are going?”

“I don’t know exactly,” he replied carelessly. “I haven’t quite made up my mind yet. I thought perhaps you might be able to decide the matter.”

“To decide!” I answered in surprise.

“Yes,” he said, sitting up suddenly and throwing the cigar overboard. “What nonsense were you talking to my daughter yesterday?”

I was so taken aback at this unexpected and gruff inquiry that I fear I stood there looking rather idiotic, which was evidently the old man’s own impression of me, for he scowled in a manner that was extremely disconcerting. I had no wish to adopt the Adam-like expedient of blaming the woman; but, after all, he had been there when I went off alone with her, and it was really not my fault that I was the girl’s sole companion in Nagasaki. All my own early training and later social prejudices led me to sympathize with Mr. Hemster’s evident ill-humour regarding our shore excursion, but nevertheless it struck me as a trifle belated. He should have objected when the proposal was made.

“Really, sir,” I stammered at last, “I’m afraid I must say I don’t exactly know what you mean.”

“I think I spoke plainly enough,” he answered. “I want you to be careful what you say, and if you come with me to my office, where we shall not be interrupted, I’ll give you a straight talking to, so that we may avoid trouble in the future.”

I was speechless with amazement, and also somewhat indignant. If he took this tone with me, my place was evidently going to be one of some difficulty. However, needs must when the devil drives, even if he comes from Chicago; and although his words were bitter to endure, I was in a manner helpless and forced to remember my subordinate position, which, in truth, I had perhaps forgotten during my shopping experiences with his impulsive daughter. Yet I had myself made her aware of my situation, and if our conversation at times had been a trifle free and easy I think the fault – but there – there – there – I’m at the Adam business again. The woman tempted me, and I did talk. I felt humiliated that even to myself I placed any blame upon her.

Mr. Hemster rose, nipped off the point of another cigar, and strode along the deck to the companion-way, I following him like a confessed culprit. He led me to what he called his office, a room not very much larger than my own, but without the bunk that took up part of the space in my cabin; in fact a door led out of it which, I afterward learned, communicated with his bedroom. The office was fitted up with an American roll-top desk fastened to the floor, a copying-press, a typewriter, filing-cases from floor to ceiling, and other paraphernalia of a completely equipped business establishment. There was a swivelled armchair before the desk, into which Mr. Hemster dropped and leaned back, the springs creaking as he did so. There was but one other chair in the room, and he motioned me into it.

“See here!” he began abruptly. “Did you tell my daughter yesterday that you were a friend of the Mikado’s?”

“God bless me, no!” I was surprised into replying. “I said nothing of the sort.”

“Well, you left her under that impression.”

“I cannot see, Mr. Hemster, how such can be the case. I told Miss Hemster that I had met the Mikado on several occasions, but I explained to her that these occasions were entirely official, and each time I merely accompanied a superior officer in the diplomatic service. Although I have spoken with His Majesty, it was merely because questions were addressed to me, and because I was the only person present sufficiently conversant with the Japanese language to make him a reply in his own tongue.”

“I see, I see,” mused the old gentleman; “but Gertie somehow got it into her head that you could introduce us personally to the Mikado. I told her it was not likely that a fellow I had picked up strapped from the streets of Nagasaki, as one might say, would be able to give us an introduction that would amount to anything.”

I felt myself getting red behind the ears as Mr. Hemster put my situation with, what seemed to me, such unnecessary brutality. Yet, after all, what he had said was the exact truth, and I had no right to complain of it, for if there was money in my pocket at that moment it was because he had placed it there; and then I saw intuitively that he meant no offence, but was merely repeating what he had said to his daughter, placing the case in a way that would be convincing to a man, whatever effect it might have on a woman’s mind.

“I am afraid,” I said, “that I must have expressed myself clumsily to Miss Hemster. I think I told her, – but I make the statement subject to correction, – that I had so long since severed my connection with diplomatic service in Tokio that even the slight power I then possessed no longer exists. If I still retained my former position I should scarcely be more helpless than I am now, so far as what you require is concerned.”

“That’s exactly what I told her,” growled the old man. “I suppose you haven’t any suggestion to make that would help me out at all?”

“The only suggestion I can make is this, and indeed I think the way seems perfectly clear. You no doubt know your own Ambassador, – perhaps have letters of introduction to him, – and he may very easily arrange for you to have an audience with His Majesty the Mikado.”

“Oh! our Ambassador!” growled Mr. Hemster in tones of great contempt; “he’s nothing but a one-horse politician.”

“Nevertheless,” said I, “his position is such that by merely exercising the prerogatives of his office he could get you what you wanted.”

“No, he can’t,” maintained the old gentleman stoutly. “Still, I shouldn’t say anything against him; he’s all right. He did his best for us, and if we could have waited long enough at Yokohama perhaps he might have fixed up an audience with the Mikado. But I’d had enough of hanging on around there, and so I sailed away. Now, my son, I said I was going to give you a talking to, and I am. I’ll tell you just how the land lies, so you can be of some help to me and not a drawback. I want you to be careful of what you say to Gertie about such people as the Mikado, because it excites her and makes her think certain things are easy when they’re not.”

“I am very sorry if I have said anything that led to a misapprehension. I certainly did not intend to.”

“No, no! I understand that. I am not blaming you a bit. I just want you to catch on to the situation, that’s all. Gertie likes you first rate; she told me so, and I’m ever so much obliged to you for the trouble you took yesterday afternoon in entertaining her. She told me everything you said and did, and it was all right. Now Gertie has always been accustomed to moving in the very highest society. She doesn’t care for anything else, and she took to you from the very first. I was glad of that, because I should have consulted her before I hired you. Nevertheless, I knew the moment you spoke that you were the man I wanted, and so I took the risk. I never cared for high society myself; my intercourse has been with business men. I understand them, and I like them; but I don’t cut any figure in high society, and I don’t care to, either. Now, with Gertie it’s different. She’s been educated at the finest schools, and I’ve taken her all over Europe, where we stayed at the very best hotels and met the very best people in both Europe and America. Why, we’ve met more Sirs and Lords and Barons and High Mightinesses than you can shake a stick at. Gertie, she’s right at home among those kind of people, and, if I do say it myself, she’s quite capable of taking her place among the best of them, and she knows it. There never was a time we came in to the best table d’hôte in Europe that every eye wasn’t turned toward her, and she’s been the life of the most noted hotels that exist, no matter where they are, and no matter what their price is.”

I ventured to remark that I could well believe this to have been the case.

“Yes, and you don’t need to take my word for it,” continued the old man with quite perceptible pride; “you may ask any one that was there. Whether it was a British Lord, or a French Count, or a German Baron, or an Italian Prince, it was just the same. I admit that it seemed to me that some of those nobles didn’t amount to much. But that’s neither here nor there; as I told you before, I’m no judge. I suppose they have their usefulness in creation, even though I’m not able to see it. But the result of it all was that Gertie got tired of them, and, as she is an ambitious girl and a real lady, she determined to strike higher, and so, when we bought this yacht and came abroad again, she determined to go in for Kings, so I’ve been on a King hunt ever since, and to tell the truth it has cost me a lot of money and I don’t like it. Not that I mind the money if it resulted in anything, but it hasn’t resulted in anything; that is, it hasn’t amounted to much. Gertie doesn’t care for the ordinary presentation at Court, for nearly anybody can have that. What she wants is to get a King or an Emperor right here on board this yacht at lunch or tea, or whatever he wants, and enjoy an intimate conversation with him, just like she’s had with them no-account Princes. Then she wants a column or two account of that written up for the Paris edition of the “New York Herald,” and she wants to have it cabled over to America. Now she’s the only chick or child I’ve got. Her mother’s been dead these fifteen years, and Gertie is all I have in the world, so I’m willing to do anything she wants done, no matter whether I like it or not. But I don’t want to engage in anything that doesn’t succeed. Success is the one thing that amounts to anything. The man who is a failure cuts no ice. And so it rather grinds me to confess that I’ve been a failure in this King business. Now I don’t know much about Kings, but it strikes me they’re just like other things in this world. If you want to get along with them, you must study them. It’s like climbing a stair; if you want to get to the top you must begin at the lowest step. If you try to take one stride up to the top landing, why you’re apt to come down on your head. I told Gertie it was no use beginning with the German Emperor, for we’d have to get accustomed to the low-down Kings and gradually work up. She believes in aiming high. That’s all right ordinarily, but it isn’t a practical proposition. Still, I let her have her way and did the best I could, but it was no use. I paid a German Baron a certain sum for getting the Emperor on board my yacht, but he didn’t deliver the goods. So I said to Gertie: ‘My girl, we’d better go to India, or some place where Kings are cheap, and practise on them first.’ She hated to give in, but she’s a reasonable young woman if you take her the right way. Well, the long and the short of it was that we sent the yacht around to Marseilles, and went down from Paris to meet her there, and sailed to Egypt, and, just as I said, we had no difficulty at all in raking in the Khedive. But that wasn’t very satisfactory when all’s said and done. Gertie claimed he wasn’t a real king, and I say he’s not a real gentleman. We had a little unpleasantness there, and he became altogether too friendly, so we sailed off down through the Canal a hunting Kings, till at last we got here to Japan. Now we’re up against it once more, and I suppose this here Mikado has hobnobbed so much with real Emperors and that sort of thing that he thinks himself a white man like the rest. So I says to Gertie, ‘There’s a genuine Emperor in Corea, good enough to begin on, and we’ll go there,’ and that’s how we came round from Yokohama to Nagasaki, and dropped in here to get a few things we might not be able to obtain in Corea. The moment I saw you and learned that you knew a good deal about the East, it struck me that if I took you on as private secretary you would be able to give me a few points, and perhaps take charge of this business altogether. Do you think you’d be able to do that?”

“Well,” I said hesitatingly, “I’m not sure, but if I can be of any use to you on such a quest it will be in Corea. I’ve been there on two or three occasions, and each time had an audience with the King.”

“Why do you call him the King? Isn’t he an Emperor?”

“Well, I’ve always called him the King, but I’ve heard people term him the Emperor.”

“The American papers always call him an Emperor. So you think you could manage it, eh?”

“I don’t know that there would be any difficulty about the matter. Of course you are aware he is merely a savage.”

“Well, they’re all savages out here, aren’t they? I don’t suppose he’s any worse or any better than the Mikado.”

“Oh, the Mikado belongs to one of the most ancient civilizations in the world. I don’t think the two potentates are at all on a par.”

“Well, that’s all right. That just bears out what I was saying, that it’s the correct thing to begin with the lowest of them. You see I hate to admit I’m too old to learn anything, and I think I can learn this King business if I stick long enough at it. But I don’t believe in a man trying to make a grand piano before he knows how to handle a saw. So you see, Mr. Tremorne, the position is just this. I want to sail for Corea, and Gertie, she wants to go back to Yokohama and tackle the Mikado again, thinking you can pull it off this time.”

“I dislike very much to disagree with a lady,” I said, “but I think your plan is the more feasible of the two. I do not think it would be possible to get the Mikado to come aboard this yacht, but it might be that the King of Corea would accept your invitation.”

“What’s the name of the capital of that place?” asked Mr. Hemster.

“It is spelled S-e-o-u-l, and is pronounced ‘Sool.’”

“How far is it from here?”

“I don’t know exactly, but it must be something like four hundred miles, perhaps a little more.”

“It is on the sea?”

“No. It lies some twenty-six miles inland by road, and more than double that distance by the winding river Han.”

“Can I steam up that river with this yacht to the capital?”

“No, I don’t think you could. You could go part way, perhaps, but I imagine your better plan would be to moor at the port of Chemulpo and go to Seoul by road, although the road is none of the best.”

“I’ve got a little naphtha launch on board. I suppose the river is big enough for us to go up to the capital in that?”

“Yes, I suppose you could do it in a small launch, but the river is so crooked that I doubt if you would gain much time, although you might gain in comfort.”

“Very well, we’ll make for that port, whatever you call it,” said Hemster, rising. “Now, if you’ll just take an armchair on deck, and smoke, I’ll give instructions to the captain.”

CHAPTER V

We had been a long time together in the little office, longer even than this extended conversation would lead a reader to imagine, and as I went through the saloon I saw that they were laying the table for lunch, a sight by no means ungrateful to me, for I had risen early and enjoyed but a small and frugal breakfast. I surmised from the preparations going forward that I should in the near future have something better than rice. When I reached the deck I saw the captain smoking a pipe and still pacing the bridge with his hands in his pockets. He was a grizzled old sea-dog, who, I found later, had come from the Cape Cod district, and was what he looked, a most capable man. I went aft and sat down, not wishing to go forward and became acquainted with the captain, as I expected every moment that Mr. Hemster would come up and give him his sailing-orders. But time passed on and nothing happened, merely the same state of tension that occurs when every one is ready to move and no move is made. At last the gong sounded for lunch. I saw the captain pause in his promenade, knock the ashes out of his pipe into the palm of his hand, and prepare to go down. So I rose and descended the stairway, giving a nod of recognition to the captain, who followed at my heels. The table was laid for five persons. Mr. Hemster occupied the position at the head of it, and on his right sat his daughter, her head bent down over the tablecloth. On the opposite side, at Mr. Hemster’s left, sat the young lady of whom I had had a glimpse the afternoon before. The captain pushed past me with a gruff, “How de do, all,” which was not responded to. He took the place at the farther end of the table. If I have described the situation on deck as a state of tension, much more so was the atmosphere of the dining-saloon. The silence was painful, and, not knowing what better to do, I approached Miss Hemster and said pleasantly:

“Good-morning. I hope you are none the worse for your shopping expedition of yesterday.”

The young woman did not look up or reply till her father said in beseeching tones:

“Gertie, Mr. Tremorne is speaking to you.”

Then she glanced at me with eyes that seemed to sparkle dangerously.

“Oh, how do you do?” she said rapidly. “Your place is over there by Miss Stretton.”

There was something so insulting in the tone and inflection that it made the words, simple as they were, seem like a slap in the face. Their purport seemed to be to put me in my proper position in that society, to warn me that, if I had been treated as a friend the day before, conditions were now changed, and I was merely, as she had previously remarked, her father’s hired man. My situation was anything but an enviable one, and as there was nothing to say I merely bowed low to the girl, walked around behind the captain, and took my place beside Miss Stretton, as I had been commanded to do. I confess I was deeply hurt by the studied insolence of look and voice; but a moment later I felt that I was probably making a mountain of a molehill, for the good, bluff captain said, as if nothing unusual had happened: