94 TKAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



Fooey, the old sin-shang, or teacher, who disappeared 

 temporarily from the tower when he heard of the Tam- 

 shui men, was a curious character. He possessed an 

 infinite capacity of spending time doing nothing, and 

 was usually to be found lying on his face, with his 

 heels saluting us, as we entered the room. Being 

 very poor, bean paste was almost his sole article of 

 diet ; but so strong were his old Canton ideas, that 

 when his son, a grown-up man, was offered a lucrative 

 situation at Shanghai in foreign employ, Fooey at once 

 refused to let him go, saying to the obedient youth, 

 " How could you go to Shanghai ? what do you know 

 about the great winds and waves ? " Wong Cheong 

 Pak, who was sent to Hong- Kong, was a pleasant, 

 garrulous, and useful old man, but he had one pecu- 

 liarity, which was troublesome. When anything was 

 proposed to be done, he would listen attentively and 

 respectfully, throwing in remarks rather developing 

 the scheme than otherwise, until he began, "If I 

 ' might be pardoned for observing " and then he would 

 proceed to show not only that the thing was impos- 

 sible, but that the very opposite of it ought to be done. 

 The only way to get over him was to admit that it 

 was impossible, but that, with his invaluable aid, even 

 such an impossibility might be accomplished. Leang, 

 another intelligent, well-educated man, who acted as 

 clerk to the emigration agency, had formerly been 

 employed in a mandarin's yamun, where he got no 

 pay, and had come to Hong -Kong in the hope of 



