I was speaking of my men delaying on the road to Kwang-tung-hsien,
when they laughed at my impatience.

"Ih dien mien, ih dien mien," shouted one, as he held out a huge blue
bowl of white wormlike strings and a couple of chopsticks. "Mien," it
should be said, is something like vermicelli. A tremendous amount of it
is eaten; and in Singapore, without exception, it is dried over the
city's drains, hung from pole to pole after the rope-maker's fashion.
Its slipperiness renders the long boneless strings most difficult of
efficient adjustment, and the recollection of the entertainment my
comrades received as I struggled to get a decent mouthful sticks to me
still.

After that I hurried on, got off the "ta lu," and suffered a nasty
experience for my foolishness. When nearing the city, inquiring whether
my men had gone on inside the walls, a manure coolie, liar that he was,
told me that they had. I strode on again, encountering the crowds who
blocked the roadway as market progressed, who stared in a suspicious
manner at the generally disreputable, tired, and dirty foreigner. Each
moment I expected the escort to arrive. I could not sit down and drink
tea, for I had not a single cash on my person. I could speak none of the
language, and could merely push on, with ragtags at my heels, becoming
more and more embarrassed by the pointing and staring public. I turned,
but could see none of my men. I managed to get to the outer gate, and
there sat down on the grass, with five score of gaping idiots in front
of me. Seeing this vulgar-looking intruder among them, who would not
answer their simplest queries, or give any reason for being there,
suspicion grew worse; they naturally wanted to know what it was, and
what it wanted. Some thought I might be deaf, and raved questions in my
ear at the top of their voices. Even then I remained impotently dumb.
Two policemen came and said something. At their invitation I followed
them, and found myself later in a small police box, the street lined
with people, facing an officer.

The man hailed me in speech uncivil. He was huge as the hyperborean
bear, and cruel looking, and with a sort of apologetic petitionary growl
I sidled off; but it was anything but comfortable, and I should not have
been surprised had I found myself being led off to the yamen. After a
nerve-trying half-hour, I was thankful to see the form of my men
appearing at the moment when I was vehemently expressing indignation at
n