ing one, for otherwise a new concern may discover it has entered into a contract with a mere "shroff" or compradore's assistant, and valuable time may be wasted before the impostor is found out.

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The compradore class is distinct in itself, and its members commence training early to qualify themselves for the performance of the duties of their vocation. In addition to being accurate accountants, they usually acquire a rudimentary knowledge, at least. of one or more foreign languages, which, with the aid of "pidgin" (a jargon understood by all Chinese traders), enables them to converse intelligibly with foreigners. One or two examples of this "pidgin English" might prove interesting to those who have not had an opportunity of hearing it: Chinaloquitur-Chin-chin master. You jussee now come Hongkong side? chin-chin you numba one good chancee. Some man talkee you wanchee one good boy makee take care you pidgin. My hab findee one numba one good piecee. He hab got down side. He blong alla samee my young blodda. You likee make look see he? He sabe englishee talkee bellee well all same my." Which, being interpreted, is as follows: "Good morning, sir. You have just arrived at Hongkong? wish you the best success. They say you want a good boy to wait upon you. have found an excellent one. He is down stairs. He is a kind of young relation of mine. Would you like to see him? He can speak English very well, just as I do."

I

I

A young man who called upon two young ladies was gravely informed by the Chinese servant who opened the door that "number one piecee side makee washeewashee, number two piecee go outside makee walkee-walkee," by which he meant to say that the elder of the two was upstairs taking a bath and the younger had gone out walking.

The duties of the compradore are complex and diverse, embodying in himself the offices of interpreter, treasurer, salesman and solicitor, and in some cases he even assumes responsibility for the honesty of the domestic servants of his employer. He must keep an accurate account of all funds passing through his hands, and is generally required to give

substantial security for the faithful performance of his multifarious duties; and to his credit, be it said, the cases are rare where he has proven recreant to the trust reposed in him. Being generally a native of the city in which he is employed, his knowledge of the financial and moral standing of the merchants in that place is of incalculable benefit to his foreign employer.

The old time conservatism to which for so many centuries the Chinese have clung as tenaciously as does the ivy to a crumbling wall, the stolid resistance to innovation of any sort, is now happily yielding to the pressure of Occidental progress. And when that resistance entirely disappears, as everything indicates it soon will, an impetus will be given to commerce to which nothing heretofore presents a parallel. With railroads opening a way for the rapid passage of our products to the teeming millions of the interior, and affording them the same facilities for communication with the seaboard, where a ready market awaits their products, a new era will be inaugurated. Old prejudices will vanish when the masses begin to realize the advantages accruing to them by an interchange of commodities, and competition among the nations will be intensified by the opportunity for further access into the richest store-house of undeveloped resources on earth, beyond the mere threshold of which, owing to legislative barriers, now however removed, they have as yet scarcely penetrated.

It being generally conceded that after the opening of the Panama Canal the Pacific Ocean will become the theatre of the fiercest struggle for commercial supremacy yet seen-a struggle where "no quarter" will be the slogan of the combatants, and which will emphasize nature's immutable law of the "survival of the fittest" and as our geographical position gives us an overwhelming advantage, nothing but the most inexcusable supineness can prevent our emerging victorious from the combat. While happily the "dove of peace" now hovers over our land, yet the philosophy of preparing for war in time of peace has been too frequently demonstrated to admit of discussion. Did we need an example to prove the wisdom of this course, the recent struggle between

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Russia and Japan furnishes it. The latter, though a pigmy in comparison to her Titanic foe, fearlessly threw down. gauntlet of defiance, knowing she well prepared, and fully apprised of the fact that her powerful adversary was entirely unprepared.

If, therefore, when the great commercial Armageddon is fought, NOW is the time to prepare for the struggle. What is the best way to do it? Primarily, by impressing upon Congress the importance of giving every aid and encouragement possible for the formation of a mercantile marine, adequate to the necessities of our growing commerce, which should be carried in our own, and not in foreign, bottoms. This policy has always been followed by England-of course, she could not do otherwise if she would, no other nation having the ships-and her wisdom in that respect is manifested by the commanding position she so deservedly occupies in the commercial world; there probably not being a navigable body of water on earth where the "Union Jack" is not a familiar object. Japan is following England's example in this respect, with the result that she is fast becoming a formidable rival to her preceptor. Generous subsidies should be granted to our ocean steamship lines, especially the trans-Pacific ones, that have difficulties to contend

against which do not confront the TransAtlantic lines.

Secondly, our manufacturers and merchants should more actively interest themselves in promoting a demand for American products, by largely augmenting the number of firms and lines of business at present represented in China. There ought to be at least ten for every one American house now there; and they should be established on a permanent basis, and not, as some have been, merely spasmodic and ephemeral experiments. English, French and German business houses are numerous in Shanghai; American houses are far from it. The fingers of one hand, minus the thumb, would about correctly represent the number. Surely, when our commercial community awakes to a realization of the magnitude of the business that under the new conditions can be done with China, this state of affairs will be remedied, thereby proportionately increasing the demand for American productions, and, as a consequence, conserving their own best interests. Then indeed will the white winged argosies blaze a phosphorescent pathway across the broad Pacific, reaching from the Golden Gate of Cali fornia to the shores of far Cathay; a pathway strewn with bright anguries for the land of the Dragon, and our own country as well.

leave.

SERVED THE

BUFFALO"

"Hully gee! if that coon over there don't look like the Buffaler' Sorrel Top Clark pulled over the breastworks when the 'Paches was having fun with him. down at Araveda."

"Curb down to a walk, you patched pants broncho buster, and stop calling the Major names," said the sergeant with mock dignity, estopping the tobacco in his pipe with a well-trained little finger."

"Curb in yourself, you Dutch imitation of a yellow-legged centaur, and who was calling the Major names?" was Smithy's "come back" with an equal show of dignity, for these two little cavalry men could no more "scrap" than they could refrain from pretending to. I was noticing that big coon across the street. Howdy, Major!"

"Hello, Smithy," I answered, returning his hearty hand squeeze, for I knew these two old campaigners, both men of record in the cavalry, men whose names were as well known in the canyons and on the ranges of the West, the old Indian West, as in this big city, where wounds had sent them, partially retired from service, permanently retired from the old life they still loved, to seek recruits for the service of which they were both so proud. "But what about Sorrel Top and the Buffaler?"

"Smithy can't tell you anything, Major.

Listen to me, and I'll tell you about when me and old Dan Schweitzer was gone hungry down on Mule Creek in Arizona," broke in the sergeant. "Me and Dan, we was in the commissary together down at Lowell after Fourth Cavalry Lawton licked Geronimo

"Shut up and give Patched Pants a chance," broke in Hawkins, Doughboy Hawkins, one time of the famous Riflers, Mops, Brooms and Feather Dusters, as his phenomenal neatness, even for a soldier, had caused the irrepressible Smithy to dub him.

"Commence firing, Smithy," I said, for I knew, as did the others, that the little sergeant was joking. "Tell us about it." Smithy had had a lot of experience in the old wild days when he rode as trumpeter to Carr, Merritt and many another famous Indian fighter on the wide frontier.

"I'll tell you," and Smithy settled back in his chair, his feet on the window-sill and his bright eyes turning from me to Hawkins and the sergeant. "It happened down in Arizona when those Ninth Cavalry Buffalers was having some tidy diddings with the Tontos. We had a pinch with them in Skinnin' Jim's day and once or twice afterwards."

"Same here," broke in the sergeant.

"Go on," and Smithy's voice was the acme of scorn, "you only licked Geronimo and Apache Kid. What do you know of Tontos?"

"If there's anything about Tontos or any other brand of Apaches the old Fourth Cavalry, and especially H troop, don't know, you tell me. Why, old Fourth Cavalry Lawton used to say, 'Give H troop a slicker and a chaw of tobacco and it'd follow to hell.'"

"Yes," and Smithy's voice was scorn embodied, "and got there first."

"Not quite that," replied the sergeant in tones of butter smoothness. "We raised it and took it right with us."

"But as I was saying," the little trumpeter warmed to his work, "the Buffalers was having some fun with the Tontos, or vice versa. Them coons is good soldiers, if they are coons, jimdandy of Caroline good soldiers."

"There you go again, praising them niggers. You make me tired." Hawkins was from Maryland, with a Marylander's well known feelings about negroes.

"I don't think any of the fellers who was with Thornburg at Milk river, or who went with 'Old Wes' (Gen. Merritt) to pull him out of his hole, has any particular call to do otherwise. And it seems to me that I've heard you say you was with one or t'other of 'em, to say nothing of our drink together that night in the trenches." How Smithy's words did cut. A man was a man to him.

This was crossing the bounds of regulation repartee, josh or come back, as the men called it, and opened an old and unhealed wound, for even in the army of the Union, Mason and Dixon's line is still a divider of some things, and Hawkins' father had owned slaves and wore the grey, while Smithy's had fought the fugitive slave law and worn the blue. The sergeant being a native of Germany rather inclined to the ideas of Smithy. The flag is one, but ideas of sentiment are several. So the sargeant, noting the drift of things, broke in with:

"A Buffaler ain't a nigger; he's a soldier, if he is black, and a blamed good one, too; so shut your yawp, both of you, and talk sense. Go on about Sorrel Top and the Buffaler, Smithy."

"As I was saying," . resumed Smithy, something of the fire still left in his voice and manner, "the Tontos was having some fun with the bureau regulations and the settlers, and as is usual, not to say natural, the Buffalers was having some fun with the Tontos. And sometimes the Tontos was having some fun with the Buffalers-which is also usual and natural and quite familiar to us fellers here, all three of us."

Grunts and nods from the other sol

diers acknowledged this little item of personal history, though the unusual tension still being on, nothing was said.

"It came to pass, as the chaplain's regulations say," Smithy went on, "that one day Sorrel Top, who was a youngster then, almost a shavetail, and a sub. in the Coon Ninth-they called him Sorrel Top because his top knot was a few shades better than the color of his troop mounts, which was sorrel

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"We used to call Lieutenant Harris Cotton Tail because his hair was as white as the last end of a Molly under the brush pile," interrupted the sergeant.

"Sorrel Top," went on Smithy, not heeding the interruption, "he started out with a handful of the Buffalers to have some fun with the Tontos, and by and by the Tontos started in to have fun with him. Then he knew they was somewhere about six or ten to one of his, for that's Tontos' tactics."

"Say, Major," broke in the sergeant, "get Smithy to tell you about how Striker arrested the buck in old Quonothay's camp. It was a hundred to one there." And Smithy smiled, for Captain Striker was his troop commander at one stage of his long career, but his frown was fierce and heavy, despite the momentary smile, as he rebuked his bunkie.

""Tenshun! I'm a-telling this, and it's about Sorrel Top. But as I was a-saying, Major," Smithy turned to me with elaborate gesture, "them was Tonto tactics. They had him corralled about as quick as a bunch of Texas cowboys round up a maverick, and thought they were going to have a good time. It was a rocky canyon side, and he managed to get in a cave and put up a wall of loose stones in front. The coon, who was a sergeant and in charge of a part of the line, got a bit reckless, and got plugged and went over the works. How those naked, bang-haired, bead-eyed, lead-spitting devils did yell when he went over. And they weren't slow about pumping lead and arrows at him, either. the poor devil no sooner reached ground level than over went Sorrel Top after him, picked him up and lifted him over where the other Buffalers were ready to take him. And then came Sorrel Top, with one boot heel shot off and a whole vacant lot of close calls. It was a job, too, for the coon

But