Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/357

Rh these was my bathroom. It also had a little swing-door opening into the inner hall. Chinese “boys,” as they are called, passed to and fro, in and out, regardless of me or my state of apparel. They paid no attention to anything I said, nor could f bar them out anyway. When I wanted them I had to go and call them, and it so happened that I wanted many things, for I was discarding all my garments worn on the voyage, so that no New Guinea fever microbes should abide with me, and what did on the ship would not do in smart Singapore. After many appeals to passing servants, a languid Englishman in the next balcony compartment said to me, “‘ Excuse me, but these are my boys you are ordering about.”’ I apologised and asked how I could possibly know that, as they seemed to use my room as a passage. He said they were incorrigible that way, and explained that here one engaged at once one’s own Chinese boys to wait on one—they were not hotel servants at all! He sent for an hotel servant for me for the meanwhile.

But now I am getting into the way of things here. I could not get on without attention, so said to the hotel people I must have boys to wait on me, and to “‘ put them in the bill.” Now I appear to have six. They all look the same and I no longer lack attention or attendance. I live a life of mingled laziness and overpowering energy, half in my chair here and half tearing about oaeeves in “rickshaws.”’ My neighbour next door I do not see unless I advance to the front of the balcony. He then takes his cigar out of his mouth and says “Ah!” He is always in his chair in exactly the same attitude with apparently the same cigar at the same stage. He never smiles and seldom speaks. Once as I was leaving the hotel my conscience pricked me and I