e rickshaw coolies, as so many country
people do. During a year, some two hundred thousand men, young and old
and mostly from up-country, take up the work of rickshaw runners. It
is not profitable employment, and the work is hard, and many of them
drop out--the come-and-go of rickshaw runners is enormous, a great,
unstable, floating population. Kwong and Liu hired a rickshaw between
them, for a dollar and ten cents a day, and their united exertions
barely covered the day's hire. Sometimes they had a few coppers over
and above the daily expenses, sometimes they fell below that sum and
had to make up the deficit on the morrow. On the occasions when they
were in debt to the proprietor, they were forced to forego the small
outlay required for food, and neither could afford a meagre bowl of
millet. Pulling a rickshaw on an empty stomach is not conducive to
health. Kwong, being an older man, found the strain very difficult,
and Liu, being but a fledgling and weak and undeveloped at that, also
found it difficult. They were always tired, nearly always hungry, and
part of the time ill. And what neither could understand was the
passengers' objection to paying the legal fare. Now and then, of
course, they had a windfall in the shape of a tourist or a drunken
sailor from a cruiser, but these exceptions were few and far between.
Necessarily so, considering the number of rickshaws, and that the tram
cars were strong competitors as well.

They were also surprised at the attitude of the Europeans. The first
time that Liu was struck over the head by a beautiful Malacca cane, he
was aghast with astonishment--and pain. Fortunately he knew enough not
to hit hack. Not understanding English, he did not know that he was
being directed to turn up the Peking Road, and accordingly had run
swiftly past the Peking Road until brought to his senses, so to speak,
by a silver knob above the ear, which made him dizzy with pain. As
time passed, however, he grew accustomed to this attitude of the
ruling race, and accepted the blows without remonstrance, knowing that
remonstrance was vain. His fellow coolies soon taught him that. He and
his kind were but dogs in the sight of the foreigners, and must accept
a dog's treatment in consequence. Once a lady leaned far forward in
the rickshaw and gave him a vicious kick. Up till then, he had not
realised that the women of the white race also had this same feeling
towards him. But what can one expect? If a man lo