Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/152

 aimlessly up from the wharves and stood, rather lost, on the borders of Hongkew, the American settlement.

"We ought to go to Mr. Bolliver's people, first of all," Mark declared, but the way down these streets was so beset with interest that their walk lasted some hours longer than it should have.

For the streets blazed with vertical red and gold and black signs, the façades of shops were carved and polished and ornamented with stucco of gorgeous design, and flags and lanterns floated from the curving eaves. Below clattered the great motley crowd—hurrying rickshaw coolies, creaking wheelbarrows, modern motors, Chinese in native and foreign dress, American ladies with parasols, French sailors with their red pompons, and here and there a stern, red-turbaned Sikh policeman sitting his horse silently.

At last the boys turned into the wide white stretch of Broadway Road, under the green exotic trees. They passed the stately banks and clubs and steamship-buildings, with their solid Anglo-Oriental architecture, and finally came upon Mr. Bolliver's firm, lodged in the