English fiction -- 19th century; Short stories, English
When we went to Japan together, Griffiths kept all his money under lock
and key. I carried mine in my coat-tail pocket. But all Griffiths'
contraptions did not prevent him from spending exactly as much as I
did. You see, when he had worried his way through the big strap, and
the little strap, and the slide-valve, and the spring lock, and the key
that turned twice and a quarter, he felt as though he had earned any
money he found, whereas I could get masses of sinful wealth by merely
pulling out my handkerchief--dollars and five dollars and ten dollars,
all mixed up with the tobacco or flying down the road. They looked much
too pretty to spend.
"Safe bind, safe find," said Griffiths in the treaty port.
He never really began to lock things up severely till we got our
passports to travel up-country. He took charge of mine for me, on the
ground that I was an imbecile. As you are asked for your passport at
every other shop, all the hotels, most of the places of amusement, and
on the top of each hill, I got to appreciate Griffiths' self-sacrifice.
He would be biting a strap with his teeth or calculating the
combinations of his padlocks among a ring of admiring Japanese while I
went for a walk into the interior.
"Safe bind, safe find," said Griffiths. That was true, because I was
bound to find Griffiths somewhere near his beloved keys and straps.
He never seemed to see that half the pleasure of his trip was being
strapped and keyed out of him.
We never had any serious difficulty about the passports in the whole
course of our wanderings. What I purpose to describe now is merely an
incident of travel. It had no effect on myself, but it nearly broke
Griffiths' heart.
We were travelling from Kyoto to Otsu along a very dusty road full of
pretty girls. Every time I stopped to play with one of them Griffiths
grew impatient. He had telegraphed for rooms at the only hotel in Otsu,
and was afraid that there would be no accommodation. There were only
three rooms in the hotel, and "Safe bind, safe find," said Griffiths.
He was telegraphing ahead for something.
Our hotel was three-quarters Japanese and one-quarter European. If
you walked across it it shook, and if you laughed the roof fell off.
Strange Japanese came in and dined with you, and Jap maidens looked
through the windows of the bathroom while you were bathing.
We had hardly put the luggage down before the proprietor asked for
our passports. He asked me of all people in the world. "I have the
passports," said Griffiths with pride. "They are in the yellow-hide
bag. Turn it very carefully on to the right side, my good man. You
have no such locks in Japan, I'm quite certain." Then he knelt down
and brought out a bunch of keys as big as his fist. You must know that
every Japanese carries a little _belaiti_-made handbag with nickel
fastenings. They take an interest in handbags.
"Safe bind, safe---- D----n the key! What's wrong with it?" said
Griffiths.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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