2 THE KING'S MAHOUT 



heaping bushel baskets hung from a bamboo pole 

 which he swung from shoulder to shoulder, as, 

 staggering under the really heavy burden, he 

 called aloud his wares through the Sampeng and 

 other narrow land streets of the poorer quarter. 

 In one year he had done well enough to enable him 

 to buy a small dug-out, which he paddled through 

 the klawngs* and on the Meinam River, making 

 new acquaintances and new customers, while a 

 plook-peef compatriot in his employ supplied the 

 already established trade from the baskets. In 

 three years he had four boats; and in two more, 

 or five years from the day of his landing, Lee 

 Boon Jew had a shop in Sampeng, one on the 

 Meinam,— which, in addition to a general stock, 

 did a little trading in bamboo and rattan— a small 

 fleet of boats— and a Siamese wife. In due course 

 a son came to gladden the Chinese heart that 

 always rejoices in boy children, and by the time 

 the fond father was permitted to pridefully ex- 

 hibit the gaudily dressed infant in the nearby 

 floating shops, the little son came to be known as 



* Canals. 



fPlook-pee is the poll tax exacted of Chinamen, who emigrate 

 to Siam and do not enter Government service. It costs four 

 ticals and a quarter with a tax seal fastened about the wrist, or 

 six ticals and a half (about $3.90) for a certificate instead of the 

 wrist badge. Lee had paid the extra ticals in preference to wear- 

 ing the visible alien sign. 



