TWO:You can leave the ledger on this table when you have finished, he said.
FORE:WALKS AND TALKS IN TOKIO.During breakfast, Mr. Bassett explained to Mary the outline of the proposed journey. Doctor Bronson was going to Japan and China, and was to be accompanied by his nephew, Fred Bronson, who was very nearly Frank's age. Frank had asked his father's permission to join them, and Mr. Bassett had been considering the matter. He found that it would be very agreeable to Doctor Bronson and Fred to have Frank's company, and as the opportunity was an excellent one for the youth to see something of foreign lands under the excellent care of the Doctor, it did not take a long time for him to reach a favorable decision.
FORE:Hong-kong is a rocky island on the coast of China, and has an excellent harbor, sheltered from most of the winds that blow. The town of Victoria is built at the edge of this harbor, and the streets that lead back from the water are so steep that the effort of climbing them is liable to throw a stranger from the North into a violent perspiration. Fortunately, there is an abundance of sedan-chairs, and any one who wishes to take a promenade may do his walking by hiring a couple of chair-coolies to do it for him. The chairs are everywhere, and it is generally desirable to hire one in order to be rid of the continual applications from those that are unemployed. At the wharf where they landed the Doctor[Pg 402] engaged porters to carry the baggage to the hotel, and then took chairs for the transportation of himself and the boys. As they had the afternoon before them, the chairs were kept for making the ascent of the mountain just back of the town, and as soon as the rooms were secured, and a slight lunch had been served, they started on their excursion.He was already doing so, and nodded laughingly to his superior. Charlotte spoke on. "I tell you the truth only, gentlemen, though I tell you no more of it than I must. I have run many a risk to get the truth, and to get it early. If it is your suspicion that by so doing, or in any other way, I have forfeited a lady's liberty, let me hear and answer. If not--"
FORE:The captain gave the order to cast off the lines. Hardly had the echo of his words ceased before the lines had fallen. Then he rang the signal to the engineer, and the great screw began to revolve beneath the stern of[Pg 49] the ship. Promptly at the advertised time the huge craft was under way. The crowd on the dock cheered as she moved slowly on, and they cheered again as she gathered speed and ploughed the water into a track of foam. The cheers grew fainter and fainter; faces and forms were no longer to be distinguished; the waving of hats and kerchiefs ceased; the long dock became a speck of black against the hilly shore, and the great city faded from sight."Yes, General, if I don't have to save the horse."
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THREE:The Chinese have a way of catching fish which is peculiar to themselves, and much practised along the Yang-tse. A net several feet square hangs at the end of a long pole, and is lowered gently into the water and then suddenly raised. Any fish that happens to be swimming over the net at the time is liable to be taken in. He is lifted from the large net by means of a small scoop, and the raising and lowering process is resumed. Fred thought it was an excellent employment for a lazy man, and Frank suggested that it would be better for two lazy men than one, as they could keep each other company.
THREE:There was a sound at the top of the corridor, just the suggestion of a swish of silken drapery, and Gordon Bruce half turned. Under a cluster of electric lights stood Leona Lalage; she must have seen everything. It might have been fancy, it might have been a guilty conscience, but just for the moment Countess Lalage seemed transformed into a white fury with two murderous demons gleaming in her dark restless eyes. Then her silk and ivory fan fell from her hands, and Gordon hastened to recover it.
THREE:He climbed quickly up the narrow chalky path, and at the top left it to tramp over the turf. Here he was on an eminence that commanded miles of open country, empty and yet brimful of this invasion of renewed life that combed through him like a swirl of sea-water through the thickets of subaqueous weed. His back was to the cup of hills round which Bracebridge clustered, and turning round he looked at it with a curious sense of detachment. There were the spires of the Cathedral, and hardly less prominent beside them the terra-cotta cupolas of the Stores. He wanted one as little as he wanted the other, and turned westwards, where the successive lines of downs stretched away like waves of a landless sea. Then he stopped again, for from a tussock of grass not fifty yards from him there shot up with throbbing throat and down-beating wings a solitary lark.{233} Somewhere in that tussock was the mate to whom it sang.
