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Show In a little shop he and another man sold such articles as candles, vermicelli and opium. Once, by the aid of a Chinese doctor, he made a feeble effort to shake off his expensive opium habit, but he did not stay cured a month. Some times he went out to collect bills, and on his return found bogus dollars in the till. The partner was so plausible. "He had taken them by accident. All entreaties had failed to persuade the customers to take them back.'' To such an experience as this, he came home one night, when especially weary and worn. He waxed furious over it. In his exhausted condition, the vital force was over spent, and the next morning he wakened to find his poor eyes nearly blind. Once more he leaned on the broken reeds at hand, but the more the Chinese doctors treated his eyes, the worse they grew, and the menacing darkness steadily settled down. What would blindness mean to him ? It would mean no certain livelihood, only handfuls of stray copper cash now and then picked up by that devil's trick, fortune telling. It would mean no definite occupation. He was a reading man, but his family were illiterate. It would be good-bye to books and newspapers. He had no kind, devoted friend who would drop in and read to him. It would mean bitter brooding and suspicion of everybody. Mr. Tong may have smiled, at some earlier day, as he watched a blind mother-in- law innocently eating coarse millet cakes for breakfast, while the family, with sly silent triumph, ate their fill of fine white bread! It would mean no recreation. Gambling ? He would be cheated every time. Theatre1? Who would engineer a difficult hulk like that through the dense crowd ? Passion ? When the smoldering fires flamed up, who would lead him the 4 |
