it off, there’s a fee of fifty thousand, gold, and a ten-thousand-dollar job on my private staff for you.”
He was silent for a moment, studying his cigar. I said nothing.
It was characteristic of Kohler that he took for granted my acceptance of the job, and he was right. The Big Chance had come my way; the thing of which every white man in the East dreams, although not one dream in ten thousand ever comes true.
Stories were afloat, however; I knew with whom I was dealing. Blair, away over in Shensi, had pulled off a deal for Kohler and had gone home rich. Jim Hancy, down in Yunnan, owned a silver mine. Herb Moore tackled a Kweilin mountainside at the risk of his life, and operated a huge inland coal industry for Kohler. George Breck was not going to pass up a good thing because of the danger involved!
But why was he going to let everybody know that I was working for him? This was a new wrinkle. Usually, nobody knew just who was working for Kohler and who was not. That was one of the secrets of his amazing success, I believe.
“Know anything about the lacquer industry down south, in Fuchow?” he asked suddenly.
“Something. It was started a couple of years ago to buck the Japanese monopoly, a revival of the old Chinese lacquer work. I hear they went at it right, too; turned out high-grade stuff, sent a commercial traveler to America, and made a strong effort to establish lacquer as a commercial art product. Couldn’t be done, from what I hear; the cheap ten-cent-store Jap product forced ’em to slow down and quit.”
“Not altogether,” said Kohler quietly, but with a gleam in his eye. “Japanese influence in Fukien province was one thing that made ’em quit. Well, Breck, I’ve bought out the works. Inside the next year, if you don’t come a cropper, I’ll be shipping lacquer ware to America that’ll make the market sit up and take notice.
“Anybody can imitate lacquer,” he went on, “easiest thing on earth. But it can’t be duplicated. Lacquer is proof against water, time, everything except fire. And its beauty can’t be touched with any other sort of paint made, for it’s purely a vegetable substance. The whole secret lies in the way it is applied and made. Ever see anything like this?”
From a drawer of his desk he took a small, round box of plain pine wood and handed it to me. Half that box was bare wood, the other half had been lacquered. And what a glorious lacquer that was! I had never seen anything like it. A soft and glowing combination of red and gold, thick as leather, tough as leather, yet blazing with a soft splendor impossible to put into words. The patina was even finer than that of the famous old Martin work.
“A chap by the name of French was chief chemist for the Fuchow works,” said Kohler. “He developed tuberculosis. They sent him up into the mountains, with his sister. Not so long ago he sent ’em this sample. He didn’t know they had gone broke. Evidently he’s been at work up there. This is a novelty in lacquer, finer than anything known. I want you to go up there and buy the formula or the invention, whatever it is. Pay any price French asks, pay him any salary he asks to work for me.”
“All right,” I said. Kohler looked at me and smiled.
“George, watch your step! I’m sending you for two reasons. I can trust you; and you have an American’s initiative. Other people are after French, or will be after him. The Jap lacquer trust is in the ring; so is that big French mercantile concern in Yunnan and Shanghai—Dubonnet & Cie. They’ll stick at nothing.”
“Neither will I,” was my response. Kohler grinned at this.
“Good. Up to a certain point, I’ll be able to help you. There’s a China Navigation boat leaving tonight for Shanghai; catch it. A reservation is waiting for you. At Shanghai, it connects with a China Merchants boat for Fuchow. At Fuchow, go to the Brand House and one of my best men will call for you. He’ll tell you the rest.”
“How’ll I know him?” I demanded. “You can’t expect me to trust every coolie—”
Kohler smiled. “Read your Bible; read particularly the last verse of the third chapter of Second Chronicles, George; it’s interesting reading. And you’d better give the right answer when that man of mine turns up, or he may decline to trust you!”
I comprehended the system, if not the details. Kohler was trusting nothing to writing. He had arranged some password, and by picking it from the Bible was playing pretty safe. This indicated that his man was a native Christian.
“I don’t speak Chinese, you know.”
“No matter. You won’t need to.”
“Am I to travel as in your employ?”
“No. Never mention my name. I’ll let it be known that you’re working for me, because I want suspicion kept off a couple of men in Fukien province who are getting some leases on lac-producing territory. The risk is yours; that’s what I’ll be paying for.”
“Is French straight?”
“Square as a die! Bring him to the coast, if he can come. If not, bring me the secret in your head. Write nothing down. French knows me, and I think he’ll sell readily to me.”
“Shall I report here?”
Kohler shrugged. “No. You’ll be informed where I am. Need anything more?”
“No, thanks. I’ll get that boat tonight.”
He shook hands with me, and so we parted.
While I packed up and made ready that afternoon, I was doing a good deal of thinking. This job was apparently simple and open—but I knew James Sze Kohler! What was to hinder French coming to the coast? What was to hinder Kohler himself going to French? Politics aside, Kohler was the most influential man in China, could go anywhere, and did.
“Something queer about the whole thing!” I reflected. “French has a sister, too! That’s bad. We’ll have to see what happens at Fuchow.”
Before going aboard ship, I procured a Bible and looked up the section referred to.
II
I reached Shanghai and transferred to a small Merchants boat without incident. Later, I recalled with some wonder that it was very quick work; certainly no one could have come ahead of me. The coaster was waiting for us and we transferred directly to her. With me were a number of second-cabin natives.
I made the acquaintance of O’Grady and Schneider in the smoking room, and being the only whites aboard, and liking one another, we devoted the voyage to bridge. O’Grady was an Irishman, a junior consular officer in the British service, and was on furlough from his duties in Japan. Being an amateur geologist, he was going wandering in the Chinese hills, hoping to get enough material for an article in the Asiatic Review. He was a tall, lean, powerful chap, with a hard mouth and a merry twinkle in his eye—extremely capable.
Schneider was a French Jew, a commercial traveler, and smart as a whip. Highly educated, perfectly groomed, his dark oval features were handsome in the sleek French way. He, too, was bound for the interior; he was handling a line of typewriters which bore the newly adopted Chinese alphabet-system, and had sold dozens of them along the coast.
I was, of course, a mere American tourist on vacation, trying to see the sights.
It was morning when we entered the Min-kiang and bore up
