ONE:I found the clerks' mess a bunch of bright good fellows. After supper, stretched on the harsh turf under the June stars, with everyone's head (save mine) in some one's lap, we smoked, talked and sang. Only Gholson was called away, by duty, and so failed to hear the laborious jests got off at his expense. To me the wits were disastrously kind. Never had I been made a tenth so much of; I was even urged to sing "All quiet along the Potomac to-night," and was courteously praised when I had done so. But there is where affliction overtook me; they debated its authorship. One said a certain newspaper correspondent, naming him, had proved it to be the work--I forget of whom. But I shall never forget what followed. Two or three challenged the literary preeminence of that correspondent, and from as many directions I was asked for my opinion. Ah me! Lying back against a pile of saddles with my head in my hands, sodden with self-assurance, I replied, magnanimously, "Oh, I don't set up for a critic, but--well--would you call him a better man than Charlie Toliver?"
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THREE:Well, if you had heard her say it she began."Not much, doctor," announced the inspector, removing his hat and disclosing a fringe of carroty hair. "We 'aint found your man, and so far as I can judge we 'aint likely to. But we've found these."
THREE:"Nearly all the vast crowd in the streets consisted of men; now and then a woman was visible, but only rarely, except near the river-side, where there were some of the class that live on the water. We met some of the small-footed women, and it was really painful to see them stumping about as if they were barely able to stand. Double your fist and put it down on the table, and you have a fair resemblance of the small foot of a Chinese woman; and if you try to walk on your fists, you can imagine how one of these ladies gets along. Some of them have to use canes to balance themselves, and running is quite out of the question. The foot is compressed in childhood, and not allowed to grow much after five or six years of age. The compression is done by tight bandages, that give great pain at first, and sometimes cause severe inflammation.
THREE:The party remained three days at Canton. They rose early every morning, and went on excursions through and around the city, and it is fair to say that they did not have a single idle moment. Each of the boys made careful notes of what he saw and heard, and by the end of their stay both had enough to fill a small volume. They returned to Hong-kong on the fourth day, and on the morning after their return they sat down to write the story of their adventures. But before they began writing the projected letter a discussion arose between them, which was about like this:
