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Excerpt: ...officials, and made the same inquiries. Then he would go to the native quarters, to the gambling houses, to the water-front and the rickshaw coolies and half-naked Malay wharf-rats, holding the departmental photograph of Binhart in his hand and inquiring of stranger after stranger: "You know? You savvy him?" And time after time the curious yellow faces would bend over the picture, the inscrutable slant eyes would study the face, sometimes silently, sometimes with a disheartening jabber of heathen tongues. But not one trace of Binhart could he pick up. Then he went on to Penang. There he went doggedly through the same manoeuvers, canvassing the same rounds and putting the same questions. And it was at Penang that a sharp-eyed young water-front coolie squinted at the well-thumbed photograph, squinted back at Blake, and shook his head in affirmation. A tip of a few English shillings loosened his tongue, but as Blake understood neither Malay nor Chinese he was in the dark until he led his coolie to a Cook's agent, who in turn called in the local officers, who in turn consulted with the booking-agents of the P. & O. Line. It was then Blake discovered that Binhart had booked passage under the name of Blaisdell, twelve days before, for Brindisi. Blake studied the map, cashed a draft, and waited for the next steamer. While marking time he purchased copies of "French Self-Taught" and "Italian Self-Taught," hoping to school himself in a speaking knowledge of these two tongues. But the effort was futile. Pore as he might over those small volumes, he could glean nothing from their laboriously pondered pages. His mind was no longer receptive. It seemed indurated, hard-shelled. He had to acknowledge to his own soul that it was beyond him. He was too old a dog to learn new tricks. The trip to Brindisi seemed an endless one. He seemed to have lost his earlier tendency to be a "mixer." He became more morose, more self-immured. He found himself without the...
| ISBN-13 | 9781443243384 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10 | 1443243388 |
| Weight | 0.33 Pounds |
| Dimensions | 9.00 x 6.00 x 0.23 In |
| List Price | $9.89 |
| Format | Paperback |
|---|---|
| Pages | 94 pages |
| Publisher | |
| Published On | 2010-03-01 |
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