Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill BETWEEN THE TREATY PORTS I Never see my waitress spreading the embroidered cloth I bought in Hong-Kong but the whole occurrence comes back to me, together with the remembrance of the sights and sounds of that hot May day. The table-cloth—folded into a neat bundle —was under my arm as I stepped from the cool embroidery-shop into the blinding glare of Queen's Road. My head ached and I would never have joined the crowd gathered about some itinerant jugglers if it had not been for a charmingly dressed woman, accompanied by a Chinese servant, who stood watching them. After fifteen months of following my husband's ship up and down the Asiatic station, my wardrobe had reached the state where it was wise, when possible, to ignore it; and the sight of such a dress as that woman wore was, at first, more of an attraction than thejuggling. And, upon closer inspection, I decided that she justified the gown, for she was very lovely. She hesitated, then smiling back at me motioned toward the jugglers. "The cleverest I've ever seen—they're really worth watching," she said. They were. Soon I was completely engrossed by their remarkable achievements. A rose-tree sprouted, grew, and blossomed in the middle of the street. A stork emerged from an egg, flourished, and flew away. The basket trick held us—loitering ricksha coolies, Englishmen, Chinese gentlemen, and a few women—absorbed in the glaring noonday sunshine, while my new acquaintance and I admired and wondered and her Chinese servant watched us with black, unblinking eyes. There came a pause. The older juggler passed a small basket among his audience and, dissatisfied, handed it round a second time. The money was counted and divided. I remembered my headache and thought of the cool hotel. "They seem to have finis...