The train rumbled into Colombo in the late afternoon. I made my way at once through the pattering throng to Almeida’s. In the roofless dining-room sat Askins, puffing furiously at his clay pipe and scribbling with a sputtering pen in one of several half-penny notebooks scattered on the table before him. At the further end lolled the Swede and two fellow-beachcombers, staring at the writer as at the performer of some mighty miracle.

“Doing?” grinned the Irishman, in answer to my question. “Oh! Just another of my tales. You know you can’t knock around British-India for twenty years without picking up a few things. About the time Ole took his first bath I began jotting down some of the mix-ups I’ve wandered into. That lot went to amuse Davy Jones when a tub I was playing second engineer on threw up the sponge in the Bay of Bengal. Later on I knocked the best of the yarns together again, and I tear off another now and then when life gets dull.

“Published? Oh, I may shove them off one of these days on some penny weekly. But if I don’t, the coroner can have them for his trouble when I come to furl my mainsheet. He won’t find anything else.”

“Vonderful!” cried Ole, with a Dr. Watson accent, “I haf study in der school an’ I rhead sometimes a story in der dog-vatch; min der man vitch can make der stories! Vonderful, by Gott!”

“By the way, Franck,” said Askins, gathering the notebooks together, “how about the yellow-birds who tried to shave your sky-piece over in Kandy?”

“Why, who has been telling you—?” I gasped.

“Haven’t heard a word,” replied the Irishman; “but I knew they’d flag you. How did it turn out?”

I related my experiences with the temple priests.

“It’s an old game out here,” mused Askins. “In the good old days, whenever one of the boys went broke, it was get converted. Not all played out yet either. There’s a bunch of one-time beachcombers 273scattered among the Burmese monasteries. An old pal of mine wears the yellow up in Nepal. No graft about him, though. He’s a firm believer.

“Now and then a down-and-outer, especially over Bombay side, turns Mohammedan. But most of ’em don’t take to the surgical operation, and the cross-legged one remains the favorite. Of course, there’s always the missionaries, too, but there’s not much in it for a white man to turn Christian. There was good money in the Mohammedan game before it was worked out. There’s a little yet. Of course, you know you won’t get a red by tying up with the rice-bowlers, but it’s a job for life—if you behave.”

“Huh! Yank,” roared the Swede, peering at me through the smoke, “you get burn some, eh, playin’ mit der monkeys in der jungle? Pretty soon you ban sunstroke. Here, I make you trade.”

He pointed to the tropical helmet on the table before him.

“You’re on,” I responded.

“He ban good hat,” said Ole, proudly; “I get him last week from der Swede consul. Min he too damn big. What you give?”

For answer I tossed my cap across the table.

“Nah!” protested the Scandinavian, “I sell him for tventy cents or I take der cap an’ vun coat.”

I mounted to the floor above and returned with a cotton jacket that I had left in the keeping of Askins.

“How’s this?” I demanded.

“He ban all right,” answered Ole, slipping into it; “der oder vas all broke by der sleeves.”

I donned the helmet and strolled down to the landing jetty, where “the boys” were accustomed to gather of an evening to enjoy the only cool breeze that ever invaded Colombo. Few had been the changes in the beachcomber ranks during my absence. Amid the drowsy yarning there sounded often a familiar refrain:—“The circus is coming.” No one knew just when; but then, one doesn’t worry in Ceylon. If he hasn’t rice, he eats bananas. If he can’t find work, it is a joy merely to lie in the shade and breathe.

The publicity of the cricket grounds had led me to seek other sleeping-quarters. Opposite the shipping-office, in the heart of the European section, lay Gordon Gardens, a park replete with fountains, gay flower pots, and grateful shade. By day it was the rendezvous of the élite of the city, white and black. By night its gates were closed, and stern placards warned trespassers to beware. Small hindrance 274these, however, for in all Colombo I had no better friend than Bobby, who patroled the flanking street. Under the trees the night dew never fell, the ocean breeze laughed at the toil of the punkah-wallah, the fountains gave bathroom privileges, and prowling natives disturbed me no more; for Bobby was owl-eyed. This new lodging had but one drawback. I must be up and away with the dawn; for within pea-shooting distance of my chamber towered the White House of Ceylon, and Governor Blake was reputed an early riser and no friend of beachcombers.

One by one there drifted ashore in Colombo four fellow-countrymen, who, following my example, soon won for Gordon Gardens the sub-title “American Park Hotel.” Model youths, perhaps, would have shunned this quartet, for each plead guilty to a checkered past. As for myself, I found them boon companions.

Henderson, the oldest, was a deserter from the Asiatic squadron. Arnold, middle-aged, laden with the spoils—in drafts—of a political career in New York, awaited in Ceylon the conclusion of the Japanese-Russian war before hastening to Port Arthur to open an American saloon.

Down at the point of the breakwater, where we were wont to gather often for a dip in the brine, I made the acquaintance of Marten. He was a boy of twenty-five, hailing from Tacoma, Washington. Arriving in the Orient some years before with a record as a champion swimmer, he had spent two seasons in diving for pearls on the Coromandel coast. Not one of the native striplings who surrounded each arriving steamer, clamoring for pennies, was more nearly amphibious than Marten. It was much more to watch his submarine feats than to swim that the beachcombers sallied forth each afternoon from their shady retreats.

We swam cautiously, the rest of us, for the harbor was infested with sharks. On the day after my arrival, the Worcestershire had buried in the European cemetery of Colombo the upper half of what had been one of my companions in the “glory-hole.” The appearance of a pair of black fins out across the sun-flecked waters was certain to send us scrambling up the rough face of the breakwater.

The rickshaw men of Colombo

American wanderers who slept in the Gordon Gardens of Colombo. Left to right: Arnold, ex-New York ward heeler; myself; “Dick Haywood”; an English lad; and Marten of Tacoma, Washington

But not so Marten. While we fled, he swam straight for the coming monsters of the deep. When they were almost upon him he dived with a shout of hilarity and a dash of foam into their very 275midst, to come to the surface smiling and unscathed, perhaps far out across the harbor, perhaps under our dangling feet. How he put the sharks to flight no man knew. The “gang” was divided in its opinion between the assertion of the swimmer himself that he “tickled ’em under the belly,” and the conviction of Askins that he had merely to show them his face—for Marten was not afflicted with manly beauty.

The last member of our party was a bully born on the Bowery, younger in years than Marten, older in rascality than Henderson. As to his name, he owned to several, and assured us at the first meeting that “Dick Haywood” would do well enough for the time being. His chief claim to fame was his own assertion that he had escaped from Sing Sing after serving two years of a seven-year sentence. The story of his “get-away,” with which he often entertained twilight gatherings on the jetty, smacked of veracity. For all an innate skepticism, I found no reason to disagree with the conclusion of the “gang” that his “song and dance” was true. Certainly there was no doubt among his most casual acquaintances of his ability to get into Sing Sing. He was clever enough, fortune favoring, to have broken out.

Fleeing his native land, Haywood had brought up in Bombay and, having enlisted in the British army, was assigned to a garrison in Rajputana. Obviously, so temperamental a youth must soon weary of the guard duty and pipe-clay polishing that make up the long, long Indian day of Tommy Atkins. He engineered a second “get-away.” The enlistment papers and a buttonless uniform in his bundle certified to this adventure. In the course of time he reached Calcutta, chiefly through the fortune of finding himself alone in a compartment of the Northwest Mail with a Parsee merchant of more worldly wealth than physical prowess. A rumor of this escapade soon drove him to Madras. There his unconventional habits again asserted themselves and fortune temporarily deserted him. He was taken in the bazaars in the act of “weeding the leathers.”

Once more he escaped, this time from a crowded court room, and finding India no longer attractive, turned southward to Ceylon, hoping to make a final “get-away” by sea.

Few of “the boys” gave credence to these last tales. But they were true. For a newcomer in the ranks reported on the day of his arrival, before he had laid eyes on the culprit, that Madras was 276placarded with descriptions—they fitted Haywood exactly—of a man charged with desertion, robbery, pick-pocketing, and escape from custody.

Awaking penniless on the morning following my return from Kandy, I decided to investigate a charity system in vogue in British-India. Kind-hearted sahibs, members of a national association known as the “Friend-in-Need Society,” maintain in the larger cities a refuge for stranded Europeans and Eurasians. Above the door of each Society building appear the initial letters of its title. The inventive wanderer, for other reasons than this, perhaps, has dubbed the kindly institution the “Finish.”

In Colombo the Society offered only out-door relief, meal tickets distributed by its president or secretary. I found the first of these officials to be the youthful editor of Colombo’s English newspaper, with offices a ship’s length from Gordon Gardens. Tickets, however, had he none.

“This office was too blooming handy,” he explained, throwing aside his blue pencil to mop his brow. “If the hooligans loafing in the Gardens or on the jetty had an idle hour on their hands, they spent it inventing tales and strolled up here to see how much they could get out of the Society by springing them on me. There was more than one of them, too, that I’d have taken on the staff if he could have dished up as good a yarn every week. But the thing got to be a fad, and, when I found that a couple of fellows that applied to me had their pockets full of dibs at the time, I decided to let the secretary, the Baptist minister, do the distributing. His parsonage is four miles from the harbor, and the man that will walk that far in Ceylon deserves all he can get out of him.”

Far out beyond the leper hospital, where putrescent mortals peered dejectedly through the palings, I came upon the bungalow of the Reverend Peacock, set well back from the red highway in a grove of palms. Several old acquaintances, including Askins, had assembled. One of them stood abjectly, hat in hand, before the judgment-seat at the end of the veranda.

The secretary was a man of pugilistic build, with the voice of a side-show barker. His very roar seemed an assertion that he was an infallible judge of human nature. Yet, strangely enough, he treated most liberally the professional vagrants, and turned away empty-handed those whose stories were told stammeringly for want of 277practice. Among those who appeared before him that morning, for example, were two grafters, Askins and myself; and an Italian sailor, really deserving of assistance.

The Irishman chose to state his case in the language of university circles.

“Surely,” cried the reverend gentleman, in delight, “this must be the first time a man of your parts has found himself in this predicament?”

“Verily, yes, Reverend Peacock,” quoth the learned son of Erin, with an unrestrainable sigh, “the first indeed. As I can’t count the other times, they don’t count,” he murmured to himself. “It’s the asthma, reverend sir.”

“I shall be glad to make yours a special case,” said the secretary; “Step aside into my study.”

I advanced to tell my tale and received eight tickets, twice the usual number. A moment later the Italian was driven from the parsonage grounds with the nearest approach to an oath that a minister is entitled to include in his vocabulary.

The tickets, worth four cents each, entitled the holder to as many meals of currie and rice, tea, bananas, and cakes in a native shop chosen by the Society; it was the poorest in town. A faulty management was suggested, too, by the fact that the proprietor was easily induced to make good the Society vouchers in a neighboring arrack-shop.

Three day later, as dawn was breaking, I climbed the fence of the “American Park Hotel” and strolled away to the beach for a dip in the surf. Breakfast would have been more to the point, but my last ticket was spent. One by one, “the boys,” little suspecting that this was to prove the red-letter day of that Colombo season, turned back into the squat city; and as the sun mounted higher I retreated to the freight wharves, where the vague promise of a job had been held out to me the day before.

The dock superintendent was slow in coming. At ten o’clock I was still stretched out in the shade of his veranda, when I was suddenly aroused by a shout from the shore end of the pier. I sprang up to see the Swede struggling to keep a footing in the maelstrom of bullock carts, coolie carriers, and shrieking stevedores, and waving his arms wildly above his head.

“Circus!” he cried, “Der circus is coom, Franck! Creeket 278ground!” and, turning about, he dashed off at a pace that is rarely equaled in Ceylon by white men who look forward to a long and active life.

I dived into the throng and fought my way to the gate. The Scandinavian was already far down the red driveway leading to the native section. Among such a company of out-of-works as graced Colombo at that season, there was small chance of employment to those who lingered. I dashed after the flying Norseman and overtook him at the entrance to the public playground.

A circus at the hour of its arrival presents a chaotic scene under the best of circumstances. When it has just disembarked from a sea voyage, in a land swarming with half-civilized brown men, its disorder is oppressive. The center of the cricket field was a wild confusion of animal cages, rolls of canvas, scattered tent poles, and all else that goes to make up a traveling menagerie, not forgetting those pompous persons whose hectic garb make them as effective advertising mediums as walking billboards.

At the moment, these romantic beings were doing garrison duty; for the recumbent circus was in a state of siege. Around it surged an ever-increasing multitude of natives, peering, pushing, chattering, falling back terror-stricken before the frenzied circus men who, armed with iron-headed tent stakes, charged back and forth across the space; but sweeping out upon the scattered paraphernalia again after each onslaught.

We battled our way into the inner circle and shouted an offer of our services to the blaspheming manager. He was a typical circus boss; Irish, of course, bullet-headed, of powerful build, and free of movement, with a belligerent cast of countenance that proclaimed his readiness to engage in a “scrap” at any time that he could find leisure for such entertainment. Tugging at a heap of canvas, he peered at us between his out-stretched legs, and shouted above the din of battle:—

“Yis, I want four min! White wans! Are you fellows sailors? There’s a hill of a lot o’ climbin’ to do.”

“Both A. Bs.,” I answered.

“All right! If ye want the job, bring two more.”

We turned to scrutinize the sea of humanity about us. There was not a white face to be seen.

“Ve look by Almeida’s!” shouted the Swede, as we charged the mob.

Before we could escape, however, I caught sight of a familiar slouch hat well back in the crowd, and a moment later Askins stood beside 279us. Behind him came Dick Haywood and, our squad complete, we dashed back to the boss.

“Well!” he roared, “I pay a quid a week an’ find yerselves! Want it?”

“A pound a week,” muttered Askins, “that’s more’n two chips a day. Aye! We’ll take it.”

“All right! Jump onto that center pole an’ get ’er up. If these niggers get in the way, brain ’em with a tent stake. Stip lively now!”

The upper canvas was soon spread and a space roped off. The boss tossed a pick-ax at me and set me to grubbing holes for the seat supports. Carefully and evenly I swung the tool up and down in an old maid’s stroke. The least slip would have broken a Singhalese head, so closely did the natives press around me. To them the sight of a white man employed at manual labor was the source of as much astonishment as any of the wonders of the circus. Few, indeed, had ever before seen a European manipulating heavier tools than pen or pencil. Within an hour the news had spread abroad through the city that the circus had imported the novelty of the age, some “white coolies;” and all Colombo and his wife omitted the afternoon siesta and trooped to the cricket ground to behold this reversal of society.

The mob that I drove from hole to hole increased rapidly. My mates, carrying seat boards or sawdust for the ring, were as seriously handicapped. Haywood of the untamed temper, taking the caustic advice of the boss too literally, snatched up a tent stake and stretched two natives bleeding on the ground. Even that brought small relief.

Strange comments sounded in my ears; for the native who speaks English never loses an opportunity to display his learning. A pair at my elbow opened fire in the diction of schoolbooks:—

“This sight is to me astounding!” shrieked the high-caste youth to his older companion; “I have never before know that Europeans can do such workings.”

“Why, indeed, yes!” cried the babu. “In his home the sahib does just so strong work as our coolies, but because he is play cricket and tennis he is doing even stronger. He is not rich always and sitting in shade.”

“But do the white man not losing his caste when he is working like coolies?” demanded the youth. “Why is this man work at such? Is he perhaps prisoner that he disgraces himself lower than the keeper of the arrack-shop?”

280“Truly, my friend, I not understand,” admitted the older man, a bit sadly, “but I am reading that in sahib’s country he is make the workings of coolie and yet is not coolie.”

There were others besides the native residents whose attention was attracted to the “white coolies.” Here and there in the crowd I caught sight of a European scowling darkly at us; just why, I could not guess, unconscious of having done anything to provoke the ill-will of my race. In due time, however, I learned the cause of their displeasure.

When night fell, all was in readiness for the initial performance; though at the cost of a day’s work that we agreed could not be indulged in more than semi-annually, even for an inducement of “more than two chips.” The tents, large and small, were stretched, the circle of seats complete. Rings, flying apparatus, properties, and lights were ready for use. A half-thousand chairs, reserved for Europeans, had been ranged at the ring side, the cage of the performing lion bolted together, and the ticket booth set up at the entrance. The boss gave vent to a final snarl, called a ’rickshaw, and drove off to his hotel for dinner. Luckily, Askin’s credit was good in the fa............