Blue waters and green and the Far East today . heregoes my bargain a-glimmering. He sees at once that we are suckers from U. S. A.,where money grows on bushes and the streets arepaved with gold, and we get soaked lowest price is usually set in the street and justbefore we enter another shop. Well, I admit that these Canton shops are a greattemptation; such beautiful things those patient,ill-paid artisans turn out, so astonishingly moment an American woman reaches here sheis seized with Dementia Shoppiana. You can tellfrom the wildness of her eye, the way her lips mutt
Blue waters and green and the Far East today . heregoes my bargain a-glimmering. He sees at once that we are suckers from U. S. A.,where money grows on bushes and the streets arepaved with gold, and we get soaked lowest price is usually set in the street and justbefore we enter another shop. Well, I admit that these Canton shops are a greattemptation; such beautiful things those patient,ill-paid artisans turn out, so astonishingly moment an American woman reaches here sheis seized with Dementia Shoppiana. You can tellfrom the wildness of her eye, the way her lips muttercalculations reducing Mexican dollars to gold. Sheis unconscious of the flight of time. Life and death,home, friends, even her personal appearance, are for-gotten in Frenzied Finance, and the Devil of theBargain Counter posesses her wholly. But there are other things besides shops. Wesaw the Buddhist temple of the Five Hundred Gods,—500, count them,—each gilded and smiling vacu-ously at the Foreign Devils just as he has smiled for [136]. WATER CLOCK, CANTON. CANTON six hundred years, till their gilt is tarnished, theirworship forgotten, their altars deserted, and only onetoothless old bald-headed priest remains to showtheir faded glories for a trifling tip and explain thenames and attributes of these forgotten deities. Onesurprise, seated among these imaginary gods, ruffedand bewhiskered, is the counterfeit presentment ofan old friend, old man Marco Polo, over whose bookI pored more years ago than I care to who was the first European to visit the court ofCathay, some six or seven hundred years ago. TheKhan loved him, and had his statue placed the Boss Liar of his time for many hundredyears, later travelers confirmed him, and while hiswooden statue has slowly lost its gilt and his worshiphas faded here, his reputation at home has beencleaned up and Marco is one of the immortals. I feltlike shaking hands with him. It was a breath fromthe Long Past.
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