Alan Groot hailed me, I had just been congratulating myself that I was the only white man in Cheng-tu, barring missionaries. The brief, bloodless revolution was over; I had helped engineer it, but no one knew that. Cheng-tu, and with it the whole province of Szechwan, was now solidly under the Shanghai government. Sun Yat Sen and the patriots of Young China, without firing a shot, had cut away the very heart of China from the grafting, corrupt old mandarin government in Peking.
Our own civil and military governors were now installed in the provincial capital, Cheng-tu, and we were calmly proceeding with our share of the vast economic policy outlined for new China by Doctor Sun—a policy which will astonish the world when it has attained full publicity.
When Groot called out, I was strolling along the wide business street inside the east gate of the city, watching the crowds. Against the huge red-and-gilt signboards flowed a varied stream of humanity—coolies, brawny river men, priests from mountain lamaseries with their rosaries and helmet hats, black-robed scholars, soldiers, peddlers from Shensi and mountaineers from the Yunchan. In the midst of the clamorous confusion, I heard a familiar voice shout my name.
“Breck! Sam Breck! Wait a minute!”
I halted, and turned to see Alan Groot shoving toward, me. No wonder I was astounded! The last I heard of Groot, he was an assistant professor at Berkeley—not at all the sort of man I expected to meet casually here in western China.
Nor had he changed appreciably. He was five foot six, his face concealed behind a gray, straggling beard in sad need of trimming, and a pair of thick spectacles with large horn rims. He lived always in the past, never in the present. He was cut out for an academic life, where he could be walled in with his books out of the world, and could peacefully study and run down and transfix some hapless word or subject, until he had it feeding out of his hand.
I will admit, however, that Alan Groot knew a lot.
“Breck!” he exclaimed, grabbing my hand and shaking it heartily. “What in the name of goodness are you doing here? In a uniform, too! I thought you were out of the army?”
“This isn’t an American uniform,” I told him.
“Bless my soul, that’s so! What is it?”
“Chinese. I’m a captain in the new aviation service. Didn’t you know there’s been a change of government here since last week?”
“A—what?” He blinked rapidly at me. “You mean a revolution?”
“Put it that way,” and I chuckled. Evidently he knew nothing about it. “I’m building the hangars and aviation field here, Groot. It’s the terminus of the new air mail and express line from Shanghai. But what on earth dragged you out of your Berkeley diggings and brought you here?”
“Oh, my boy, I’m doing great things, great things!” He was fairly bubbling over with happiness. “I’ve accomplished some of the most astounding—but come along, quick! I have to meet a man in three minutes, at that corner shop. I’m getting a copy of the original edition of the Yuan Shi—an original, Breck! Come on; we can talk later. You’re free?”
I was free—and I was interested. It was certain that no report had been turned in of the presence of any white man in Cheng-tu, much less a scholar and linguist like Alan Groot. Not that I suspected him, of course; but I suspected somebody. There was a nigger in the woodpile, and it was part of my business to exterminate such gentry.
Groot was the most innocent person on God’s footstool—just the type to be used by somebody clever enough to take advantage of innocence.
We walked along together to the corner, and entered a shop. Two men sat there. One was the proprietor, smoking in a most uninterested fashion. The other was a tall, skinny mountaineer, who had beside him a sack stuffed with old Chinese volumes. The mountaineer got one good look at me, and his eyes blinked. Otherwise, his face was absolutely impassive.
I said nothing, and kept out of it. Groot began to bargain for the sack of books. He looked over one of them then simply quit haggling. He hauled out an astonishing lot of money and handed it over.
“Get a coolie for me, Breck, will you?” he asked excitedly. “An original of the Yuan chronicles! My boy, my boy, this is too good to be true!”
I stepped outside the shop, and felt the eyes of that mountaineer boring after me. I knew better than to think those volumes had turned up by any chance. They had probably been stolen from some temple, and sent here to be used in the right way.
By great good luck, I caught sight of Lieutenant Ch’en of the yamen guard, and beckoned to him. He was a Harvard man, by the way, a good type of Young China.
“Lieutenant, there’s something up,” I told him rapidly. “Report to the yamen that I may not be back for some time. Get a couple of men in a hurry and arrest a mountaineer who’s in this shop, a tall, skinny chap. He’s either a Chili man or a Korean in disguise. He has a Korean accent. Hold him until I get back to the yamen.”
“Very good, sir.” Ch’en saluted and turned. He made a gesture, and two men came out of the crowd. I told him to wait until I was gone, then summoned a coolie and reentered the shop.
The coolie took up the sack of manuscripts and Groot came out with me.
“Where to?” I demanded.
“Why—I’m stopping at a temple outside the city,” he responded.
“Then we’ll go to a tea-room and talk it over.” I directed the coolie to a place not far distant, and Groot agreed without demur, except that he begged me not to lose the coolie. Ten minutes later we were sitting in a private compartment of a tea palace with the sack of books beside us and the coolie squatting outside.
“Now,” I said, “spill it! What stirred you out of Berkeley?”
“I’m on a year’s leave of absence, Breck,” he explained eagerly. “It seems that the Chinese Government heard of my research work; and you know how interested they are in all such things? Well, I was offered a good salary, an exceptional salary, to come to China and do some investigation along my own lines. Breck, just think of an oriental government appropriating money for such purposes, when our own government won’t spend a cent! Just compare the two!”
“Just compare,” I said, “what our own government is spending on air service, and what the Chinese government is spending! That’s more to the point. But what Chinese government are you talking about, Groot?”
He took off his spectacles and polished them, looking rather astonished.
“Why, the government, of course! At Peking, you know!”
“Oh!” I returned. “I was talking of the Shanghai government. May I inquire who conducted the negotiations with you in Berkeley?”
“A man named Schmidts, of German extraction, I believe, but a Chinese citizen.”
I thought so; I knew all about Schmidts. He was a prominent member of the German-Japanese group who had the poor devils in Peking under their thumbs. And Groot, like nine out of ten Americans, thought that Peking ruled all of China. Well, I had no time to spend enlightening him just yet.
“Congratulations,” I said dryly. “What kind of research are you doing?”
He
