After four days of Shanghai, the German Mail Steamer _Princess Alice_, with passengers, mail and cargo, from Yokohama to Bremen, called at Woo Sung and put an end to our sufferings. In a driving snow and sleet storm we boarded the big German liner as she lay at anchor at the mouth of the Yangtse River, and had our baggage ticketed to the Suez Canal. It was during the next weeks, while we are plowing through the China Seas, that I began to learn more of the checkered history of my Chief of Staff. A more or less entertaining volume might be readily written on his wanderings and experiences. For hours on end, while I lay in my bunk kicking my heels and waiting for the time to pass, Monroe D. would sit on a camp stool and regale me with the story of his life. Scientists tell us that there is no such thing as perpetual motion, but when they made this statement, they had never seen my “Black Prince,” and observed the phenomena of unintermittent speech which flowed steadily and at the rate of 150 words a minute for as many minutes on end as he was able to get a hearer. He was born in Mississippi, and had moved early to Kansas, where in 1898, as he informed me, he was holding an important position in a local express company. When the call to arms for the Spanish War went forth, Morris was the first man to enlist in the 20th Kansas. For active service in Cuba he was mustered out a year later as Third Sergeant, and immediately re-enlisted in a colored volunteer regiment for a campaign in the Philippines, and quickly rose to the rank of First Sergeant in his company. After serving out his time, he returned to the States, again renewed his associations with the express business, and gave that up to accept the position of porter on a Pullman car. This business, however, did not apparently prove sufficient for the development of his intellectual assets, and he soon gave that up to go as steward for one of the American army transports. Thirteen times he had crossed the Pacific, and finally had left the transport at Tientsin and attached himself to one of the officers in the United States Marine Barracks at Peking. [Illustration: FROM FAR MONGOLIA’S BORDER FOR 180 MILES EASTWARD STRETCHES THE LINE OF THE JAPANESE TRENCHES] [Illustration: REGIMENT AFTER REGIMENT, FRESH FROM JAPAN, POUR ALONG THE NEWLY MADE HIGHWAYS] My arrival and departure had opened a new career to him, and from the day we left Peking until his return to Kansas City, both night and day were devoted to disproving the scientific phenomena referred to above. “Morris,” I would say, when I felt particularly bored, “please talk to me.” “Yes, sir,” he would say, and he would begin on the moment and continue for hours until I would say: “All right, Morris. Can do. Go to bed,” when he would cut it off in the middle of a sentence with a “Yes, sir. Good Night, sir!” and be off.