Civilization | Page 4

for the Chinese. His mother's people did not appeal to him, he did not like their manners and customs. Above all things he wanted to be English, like his father, whom in his imagination he had magnified into a sort of god. But his father's people would have none of him. Even the clerks in the bank only spoke to him on necessary business, during business hours, and cut him dead on the street. As for the roysterers and beach-combers gathered in the bars of the hotels, they made him feel, low as they were, that they were not yet sunk low enough to enjoy such companionship as his. It was very depressing and made him feel very sad. He did not at first feel any resentment or bitterness towards his absent father, disappeared forever from his horizon. But it gave him a profound sense of depression. True, there were many other half-breeds for him to associate with--the China Coast is full of such--but they, like himself, were ambitious for the society of the white man. What he craved was the society of the white man, to which, from one side of his house, he was so justly entitled. He was not a very noticeable half-breed either, for his features were regular, and he was not darker than is compatible with a good sunburn. But just the same, it was unmistakable, this touch of the tar brush, to the discriminating European eye. He seemed inordinately slow witted--it took him a long time to realise his situation. He argued it out with himself constantly, and could arrive at no logical explanation. If his mother, pure Chinese, was good enough for his father, why was not he, only half-Chinese, good enough for his father's people? Especially in view of the fact that his father's history was by no means uncommon. His father and his kind had left behind them a trail of half-breeds--thousands of them. If his mother had been good enough for his father---- His thoughts went round and round in a puzzled, enquiring circle, and still the problem remained unsolved. For he was very young, and not as yet experienced.
He was well educated. Why had his father seen to that? And he was well provided for, and was now making money on his own account. He bought very good clothes with his money, and went in the bar of one of the big hotels, beautifully dressed, and took a drink at the bar and looked round to see who would drink with him. He could never catch a responsive eye, so was forced to drink alone. He hated drinking, anyway. In many ways he was like his father. The petty clerks who were at the office failed to see him at the race course. He hated the races, anyway. In many respects he was like his father. But he was far more lonely than his father had ever been. Thus he went about very lonely, too proud to associate with the straight Chinese, his mother's people, and humbled and snubbed by the people of his father's race.
He was twenty years old when the Great War upset Europe. Shanghai was a mass of excitement. The newspapers were ablaze. Men were needed for the army. One of the clerks in the office resigned his post and went home to enlist. In the first rush of enthusiasm, many other young Englishmen in many other offices resigned their positions and enlisted, although not a large number of them did so. For it was inconceivable that the war could last more than a few weeks--when the first P. and O. boat reached London, it would doubtless all be over. During the excitement of those early days, some of the office force so far forgot themselves as to speak to him on the subject. They asked his opinion, what he thought of it. They did not ask the shroff, the Chinese accountant, what he thought of it. But they asked him. His heart warmed! They were speaking to him at last as an equal, as one who could understand, who knew things English, by reason of his English blood.
So the Autumn came, and still the papers continued full of appeals for men. No more of the office force enlisted, and their manner towards him, of cold indifference, was resumed again after the one outburst of friendliness occasioned by the first excitement. Still the papers contained their appeals for men. But the men in the other offices round town did not seem to enlist either. He marvelled a little. Doubtless, however, England was so great and so invincible that she did not need them. But why then these appeals? Soon he learned that these young men could not be spared from their offices in the Far East.