338 Sport and Life. 



burst forth. Nurse was a bad woman, soon she would kill the 

 child, she was tying it too tight round the waist ; white clothes 

 were not good for babies, they should have nice wadding and 

 red flannel ; they should not be washed so often. He knew a 

 Chinese woman who brings up babies very well, would I let her 

 come ? 



"No? Too bad. If you get another man to do washing 

 and cook, I look after baby, you tell me ; Chinese woman tell 

 me, I soon can do it all light." 



Gee's ancestors were his religion, as they seem to be of all his 

 race ; at least, that part of religion that consists of worship and 

 veneration. All the rest was fear fear of an unknown evil, fear of 

 invisible demons. Not always invisible either, for, as he said, " Some 

 man can see debils, some man no can see them ; he there all the 

 time, air he full of them." Probably the Chinaman who sees 

 devils sees them through the medium of opium, for they must 

 often get to the state the hard drinker was in, who, when a 

 mouse ran across the floor of the saloon at the bar of which he 

 was standing with some friends, exclaimed, " I say, you fellows, 

 you may think I saw a mouse run across the floor, but I didn't." 



" If you believe in a joss," I said to Gee one day, "why don't 

 you go to the joss-house more often ? " 



" It cost me two bits " (about one shilling). 



" Why do you have to pay to go to the joss-house ? " 



" All the same you pay in church, to keep the debil away." 



" Why do you take chickens and wine and cakes to the graves 

 of your uncles, and then bring them back to Chinatown and eat 

 them yourself? You must know, as you eat them yourself, the 

 things can be of no good to your dead relations." 



" You see," replied he quickly, taking up a cup, and holding it 

 in front of a lamp so that a sharp shadow was thrown on to the 

 white tablecloth. " You see that," pointing to the shadow, " dead 

 men all the same that, he eat all the same that (shadow) of food 



