"Look here," I said, "that's all right. You would have done as much for me. Now let's sit down and have a peg and a chat. I can put you up for the rest of the night, you know, and I shall be awfully glad to do it." He looked as if he was going to make more speeches, but I cut him short. "As for putting your life in my hands," I said, "we don't talk like that in England." He sat down and a faint smile came upon his tired lips. "And do the public-house keepers in England have hands such as yours are?" he said gently. "Sir, your hands are white, they are also shaped in a certain way, and your nails are not even in mourning for your profession!" I cursed myself savagely as he mocked me. Bill had pointed out over and over again that I oughtn't to use a nail brush too frequently--it wasn't in the part--but I always forgot it. To hide my confusion I moved a little table towards him on which was a box of excellent cigarettes. Unfortunately, also on the table was a little pocket edition of Shakespeare with which I used to solace the drab hours. He picked it up, opened it plump at "Romeo and Juliet"--the play which, for reasons known to you, I most affected at the time--and looked up at me with gentle eyes. "'Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona,'" he said. My brain was working like a mill. I could not make the fellow out. What did he know, what did he suspect? Well, the best thing was to ask him outright. "You mean?" He became distressed at once. "You speak harshly to me, O my preserver. I meant but that I knew at once that you are not born in the position in which I see you. Perhaps you will give me your kind leave to explain. In my native country I am of high hereditary rank, though I am poor enough and occupy a somewhat menial position here. My honorable name, honorable sir, is Pu-Yi, which will convey nothing to you. During the rebellion of twenty years ago in China, my ancestral house was destroyed and as a child I was rescued and sent to Europe. For many years the peasants of my Province scraped their little earnings together, and a sum sufficient to support me in my studies was sent to me in Paris. I speak the French, Spanish and English languages. I am a Bachelor of Science of the London University, and my one hope and aim in life is, and has been, to acquire sufficient money to return to the tombs of my ancestors on the banks of the Yang-tse-kiang, there to live a quiet life, much resembling that of an English country squire, until I also fade away into the unknown, and become part of the Absolute." There was something perfectly charming about him. Since he spotted I wasn't a second edition of the Honest Fool, since he had somehow or other divined that I was an educated man, I felt drawn to him. You must remember that for months now the only person I had had to talk to was Bill Rolston. And all the time, he was so occupied in our tortuous campaign that we only met late at night to report progress.