“The best of Chinamen as employers is that they have such gentlemanly instincts.  Once they become convinced that you are a straight man, they give you their unbounded confidence.  You simply can’t do wrong, then.  And they are pretty quick judges of character, too.  Davidson’s Chinaman was the first to find out his worth, on some theoretical principle.  One day in his counting-house, before several white men he was heard to declare:  ’Captain Davidson is a good man.’  And that settled it.  After that you couldn’t tell if it was Davidson who belonged to the Chinaman or the Chinaman who belonged to Davidson.  It was he who, shortly before he died, ordered in Glasgow the new Sissie for Davidson to command.”

We walked into the shade of the Harbour Office and leaned our elbows on the parapet of the quay.

“She was really meant to comfort poor Davidson,” continued Hollis.  “Can you fancy anything more naively touching than this old mandarin spending several thousand pounds to console his white man?  Well, there she is.  The old mandarin’s sons have inherited her, and Davidson with her; and he commands her; and what with his salary and trading privileges he makes a lot of money; and everything is as before; and Davidson even smiles—­you have seen it?  Well, the smile’s the only thing which isn’t as before.”

“Tell me, Hollis,” I asked, “what do you mean by good in this connection?”

“Well, there are men who are born good just as others are born witty.  What I mean is his nature.  No simpler, more scrupulously delicate soul had ever lived in such a—­a—­comfortable envelope.  How we used to laugh at Davidson’s fine scruples!  In short, he’s thoroughly humane, and I don’t imagine there can be much of any other sort of goodness that counts on this earth.  And as he’s that with a shade of particular refinement, I may well call him a ‘really good man.’”

I knew from old that Hollis was a firm believer in the final value of shades.  And I said:  “I see”—­because I really did see Hollis’s Davidson in the sympathetic stout man who had passed us a little while before.  But I remembered that at the very moment he smiled his placid face appeared veiled in melancholy—­a sort of spiritual shadow.  I went on.

“Who on earth has paid him off for being so fine by spoiling his smile?”

“That’s quite a story, and I will tell it to you if you like.  Confound it!  It’s quite a surprising one, too.  Surprising in every way, but mostly in the way it knocked over poor Davidson—­and apparently only because he is such a good sort.  He was telling me all about it only a few days ago.  He said that when he saw these four fellows with their heads in a bunch over the table, he at once didn’t like it.  He didn’t like it at all.  You mustn’t suppose that Davidson is a soft fool.  These men —