Gai-Jin Read Free Page B

Perhaps I may host a dinner in your honor, at the Club?”
    “Thank you. I will ask my host, Monsieur Seratard.” Angelique saw Struan glance back, up ahead, and she waved gaily. “Mr. Struan was kind enough to escort me here.”
    “Really?” As if we didn’t know, Canterbury thought, and wondered about her, how you could catch and hold and afford such a treasure, wondered about the brilliant young Struan who could afford it, wondered too about rumors that the struggle for dominance between Struan’s and their major trading rival, Brock and Sons, was rising again, something to do with the American civil war that had started last year.
    The pickings are going to be huge, nothing like a war for business, both sides already going at each other like maniacs, the South more than a match for the Union …
    “Angelique, look!” Struan reined in, pointing. Ahead a hundred yards, down the small rise, was the main road. They came up beside him.
    “I never thought the Tokaidō would be this big, or so crowded,” Phillip Tyrer said.
    Except for a few ponies, everyone was on foot. “But … but where are the carriages, or tumbrils or carts? And more than that,” she burst out, “where are the beggars?”
    Struan laughed. “That’s easy, Angelique. Like almost everything else here they’re forbidden.” He shifted his top hat to a more jaunty angle. “No wheels of any sort are allowed in Japan. Shōgun’s orders. None!”
    “But why?”
    “It’s one sure way of keeping the rest of the population in order, isn’t it?”
    “Yes, indeed.” Canterbury laughed sardonically, then motioned towards the road. “And add to that, every Tom, Dick or Mary there, high or low, has to carry travel papers, permission to travel, even to be outside their own village, same for princes or paupers. And notice the samurai—they’re the only ones in all Japan who can carry weapons.”
    “But without proper stagecoaches and railways, how can the country possibly work?” Tyrer was perplexed.
    “It works Japan style,” Canterbury told him. “Never forget Jappers have only one way of doing things. Only one. Their way. Jappers are not like anyone else, certainly not like Chinese, eh, Mr. Struan?”
    “Indeed they are not.”
    “No wheels anywhere, Miss. So everything, all goods, food, fish, meat, building supplies, every sack of rice, stick of wood, bale of cloth, box of tea, keg of gunpowder—every man, woman or child who can afford it—has to be carried on someone’s back—or go by boat, which means by sea ’cause they’ve no navigable rivers at all, so we’re told, just thousands of streams.”
    “But what about the Settlement? Wheels they are allowed there, Mr. Canterbury.”
    “Yes, indeed they are, Miss, we’ve all the wheels we want though their officials bitched like bloody … sorry, Miss,” he added quickly, embarrassed. “We’re not used to ladies in Asia. As I was saying, Japper officials, they’re called Bakufu, they’re like our civil service, they argued about it for years until our Minister told them to get f—to, er, to forget it because our Settlement was our Settlement! As to beggars, they’re forbidden too.”
    She shook her head and the feather on her hat danced merrily. “It sounds impossible. Paris, she is … Paris is filled with them, everywhere in Europe, it’s impossible to stop the begging.
Mon Dieu
, Malcolm, what about your Hong Kong?”
    “Hong Kong’s the worst,” Malcolm Struan said, smiling.
    “But how can they forbid begging and beggars?” Tyrer asked, perplexed. “Mademoiselle Angelique is right, of course. All Europe’s a begging bowl. London’s the richest city in the world, but it’s inundated.”
    Canterbury smiled strangely. “There’re no beggars because the Almighty Tycoon, the Shōgun, king of the lot, says no begging, so it’s law. Any samurai can test his blade on any beggar at any time—or on any other bugger … pardon … or anyone else for that matter so