Tab knew nothing about him except that he was a successful Chinaman who had gravitated into the restaurant business. He asked Jacques for enlightenment, well knowing that if the news editor could not satisfy his curiosity, it was because Yeh Ling was altogether uninteresting. Jacques was one of those rarities, to whom reference is so frequently made that it might be imagined they were as common as straws in a stable. He was a veritable “mine of information.” The genus occurs sometimes in newspaper offices. Jacques knew everybody and everybody’s wife. He knew why they married. He also knew why stars twinkled and the chemical composition of tears. Quote him a line from any classic and he would give you its predecessor and that which followed. He knew the dates of all important earthquakes and was an authority on the Mogul Emperors. He could sketch you with equal facility the position of Frossard’s second corps at Rezonville on August 17th, 1870, or the military situation at Thermopylae—and dates.
The only serious students of the Megaphone reference library were the reporters who went there to confound Jacques. They never succeeded.
“Yeh Ling? Yes—queer bird. An educated Chink—got a son who is quite a swell scholar by Chinese standards. He ought to make a good story some day; that house he is building at Storford—it is on the way to Hertford; says that one day his son will be the Chinese Ambassador here and he wants him to have a house worthy of his position. That is what he told Stott. Know Stott? He is a dud architect who knows it all. Weird little devil who looks as if he might have been clever with a different kind of brain. Stott laid out the ground work, sort of Chinese temple with two enormous concrete pillars that are going to stand halfway down the drive. The Pillar of Cheerful Memories and the Pillar of Grateful Hearts. That’s what he is going to call them. Stott thought it was heathenish and wondered if the Bishop would like it. Yes, you ought to see that place, Tab. No, it isn’t built. Yeh Ling has nothing but Chink labour. The Secretary of the Builders’ Union went to see him about it. Yeh Ling said his ancestors had a union of their own which put the bar upon non-Taoist labour. Taoism—”
“I hate to wade into the foaming torrent of your eloquence,” said Tab gently, “but how did you come to meet Stott?”
“Same lodge,” said Jacques. “It is not for me to talk down a brother craftsman—are you one of us by-the-way?”
Tab shook his head.
“Ought to be. Get a little respect for authority into your system. As I was saying, I don’t want to knock Stott, but he’s not everybody’s meat. Go and see that temple or whatever it is, Tab. Might be a good story.”
On the first idle day he had, Tab took his motor bicycle and went out to Storford. He was not entirely without hope that he would see Ursula—her house was only seven miles beyond Storford Hill, and he had reason to know that she had withdrawn herself to her country home. In a letter telling this she had told him in so many words that when she wanted him she would send for him.
He saw the building from a distance.
He had noticed it before—it was hardly possible to miss seeing it, for it stood on the crest of one of the few hills the country boasted. The walls were half finished and heavy wooden uprights rose like the palings of a fence above the queerly laid courses. And one of the pillars already lifted its lofty head. It flanked on one side a broad pathway which was half the width of the house, and stood some fifty feet above the ground, being crowned by a small stone dragon.
Tab wondered if this was the Pillar of Grateful Hearts or that which stood, or would stand, for cheerful memories.
Its diameter must have been fully five feet. Near at hand was one of the wooden moulds in which it was cast, and a Chinese workman was scraping the interior.
Tab walked through a break in the low hedge which separated Yeh Ling’s new home from the road and now stood regarding with interest the activities of the blue-bloused workmen. Their industry was remarkable. Whether they were running bricks and mortar, or cutting out the garden (already taking shape) or walling up the terraces, they moved quickly, untiringly, wholly absorbed in their occupations. Never once did they stop to lean upon their spades and picks to discuss the chances of the new administration, or to tell one another how Milligan got his black eye.
Nobody seemed to notice Tab. He strolled further into the land and there was none to challenge his right. A gang of men were gravelling and rolling the broad path and one of these said something which sent the others into a fit of that chittering laughter which is peculiar to the East. Tab wondered what was the joke.
Turning to walk back to the road, he saw that a car had stopped at the break in the hedge, and his heart gave a leap, for its occupant was Ursula.
“What do you think of it?” she asked.
“It is going to be rather wonderful—how do you like the idea of having a Chinaman for a neighbour? I forgot—you rather like the Chinese?”
“Yes,” she said shortly. “There could be worse neighbours than Yeh Ling.”
“You know him?”
He wondered if she would deny acquaintance or evade the question.
“Very well,” she said calmly, “he is the proprietor of the Golden Roof. I often dine there. You know him too?”
“Slightly,” said Tab, looking back at the unfinished house. “He must be rich.”
“I don’t know. One never really knows what money is required to build a place like this. The labour is cheap and it seems a very simple kind of house.”
And then with a wave of her hand, she drove
