Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-12-29
Continued From Third Page.)

ducks concealed under his tattered gar
ments.
Now it seems to be the purpose OF
! the foreigner in these mixed courts to
/ temper Chinese justice with Western
| mercy. So johnson, true to the temper
of his job, insisted that since there was
no evidence" to prove that the man
! had stolen the ducks, he should GO
/ free. And, accompanied by the quack-
| ing of the ducks, the poor Chinese de-
| parted.
Next day was "Suon chang" or
household reckoning day." and John
sons number one boy came to him to
cast up accounts.
One thousand cash rice for the cat"
he enumerated, 1000 cash new cloth
for mop, l 900 cash meat for dog" And
| then he ended:
''Velly sorry. master, have loosee four
piece duck!"
The birds that had quacked their
way out of the courtroom had been
Johnson'S own.
johnson loved the joke on himself.
For him, the intellect is only one of the
tools of life. Learned, scholarly, as he
is, he can, as some one put it, sit at
feet on the table"
His manners are those of a man so
completely at home in any world that
they are always equally completely
adapted to his environment. With
OrtentalS, he has the suavity of the
Oriental. With business men, the easy
approach of the good fellow With
women, the courtesy of the diplomat.
With every one, humanity.
His large blue eyes turn upon the
stranger with the expectancy of kind
listen q until Hn
pathy of understanding. His is a genial
face under its thinning pale gold hair,
face all colored in shades of pale
pink, protruding into an aquiline nose. a
strong chin, and outlined by pale gold
eyebrows and very thick, long, pale
gold eyelasheS.
Registers Humanity.
1t is intelligence more than intellect,
and humanity more than anything else
which register when you first know him.
For always behind the laughter and
the happy way you sense something else
something elusive, but beautiful. You
know those Chinese balls of ivory.
carved delicately in patterns of flowers
and leaves through whose open traceries
you see another ball, as delicately
carved, and inside that still another?
nc ID SOIncJllLlR ike JE1cm.
If he reads this he will laugh and say
mo, solid ivory!" Yet he will go on
catching every nuance of thought and
OF experience. He will go on carrying
everywhere with him his we'll thumbed
copy of Alice in Wonderland"-uuain
picture of exquisite fantasy.
Alice" is not the only book that
shares his somewhat lonely life-he has
never married. Since those first days
in Mukden when his Chinese teacher
handed him 1.-THE Sacred Edicts of
Ching Dyn"-the 10-character classic
(Which he calls "a sort of Chinese
Guffey's Reader'O he has ceased to read
old and new writings in Chinese.
His bookcase, his bedside table in
Peiping, will contain the sort of books
he likes, books he reads far into the
night-books on geology, on economic
botany and stories that are neither Bit
ter nor sordid nor tragic.
He Is "Earminded."
Like all natural linguists, he Is Gear
minded" He learns more easily to
speak language than to read or write
It. When he began his work in China
he studied with a Chinese who spoke
no English. He learned the Chinese for
the single expression: What is this?"
and so, by gesture and reiteration, came
finally toward mastery OF the spoken
tongue and then into a knowledge of
its thousands of symbols.
And all the time johnson had his
part to do in our consulate at Mukden,
high on the hill above the Russ and
Chinese interplay emuch like. this mo-
ment's).
Still studying-now the "Analects" of
ConfuciuS-he went from Mukden to
Hardin, from Hardin to Hankow. And
there, walking in the Bund, he saw the
flare of flame across a river, and, being
in charge, he crossed to see. He saw
a high wall with Chinese snipers look
ing down upon dead Chinese at the
foot Of 1t. He saw a flag of rainbow
stripes-the first flag OF new republic.
He later saw the viceroy flee to Shang-