[Editor: This is a chapter from the novel The Coloured Conquest (1904) by “Rata” (Thomas Richard Roydhouse).]
Chapter V.
I learn of Major Matte Yoko’s threatening and brutal letter to Mabel. — “I will come for you in 1908.”
“You must understand,” said Captain Sunotoko, “that though Major Matte Yoko and I are life-long friends I am not in sympathy with his motives so far as Miss Graham is concerned. You will recognise that I trust?”
I bowed.
“Thank you. I was indignant with him for what you call the exhibition he made of himself — and me; oh, that smack on the jaw! (with a monkey-like grimace) — at the Hotel Australia. We were guests, and — well, Matte Yoko said too much.”
“Much, too much!” I remarked, coldly. “By the way, he was free too, with particulars of Japan’s plots.”
“Oh, that,” said Sunotoko, hurriedly; “when the wine is in the wit takes itself off, as Roodyard Kipling so beautifully puts it. No! Not Kipling! Shakespeare, eh? Well, it does not matter. Yoko talked like an irresponsible ass, and that is what he was at the moment. See! The wine, you know.”
“The Scotsman has a saying that only bairns and drunken men speak the truth,” I said.
“Scotsman, eh? I have not read him, but that is very good; I must turn him up. I read all the British poets.”
“But there,” I said, with some abruptness, for I did not feel in the mood just then for a lengthened interview with Sunotoko, notwithstanding his agreeableness; “tell me what you know about Major Yoko’s letter to Miss Graham.”
“Oh, the letter?”
“Yes, the first letter; what did it state?”
“Yoko showed me the letter before he sent it, to see if I could suggest any improvement, saying — from your Lord Tennyson, I think — ‘two heads are better than one, even if one is a sheep’ — a beautiful sentiment. What?”
“And you approved of the contents of the letter?” I asked, pinning him with my glance, which I could realise was not too friendly.
“Not so, my friend. Those who jump at conclusions sometimes fall in the soup, as the divine Kipling says — or was it Hamlet? There are so many of your poets, I sometimes confuse them; but I love them all, you bet!”
“But the letter.”
“The letter I strongly disapproved. I said to him, ‘Do not send a letter with such vicious words as these. You know that, as the English poet says, birds of a feather sometimes come home to roost, so mind your eye.’ But he would send it. Not one word would he alter. I asked him, ‘Why did you show me this if you are not taking my advice about altering it?’”
“And what did he say?”
“‘I showed it to you,’ he said, ‘not for suggestions as to alterations, but so that you would be able to follow the game!’”
“Follow the game? What game?”
“The game with Miss Graham, I suppose. I do not know, of course; I never regarded Yoko seriously on this matter; he is the firework. Poetic, too, is Yoko, though he has not so extensively read your poets as I have — I remember he said ‘I have hitched my — something or other (I always think of braces with that line, but it’s not braces) — I have hitched my — something — to a star,’ and it’s got to stay ‘hitched.’ Yoko put in a year or two at an American Academy, you know, and never recovered from it. As Mr. Kipling says, ‘There is a divinity that shapes us no matter how we may cut up rough.’ How true, that is.”
“For the Lord’s sake, get on!” I exclaimed, beginning to lose all patience.
“Ah; the contents of the letter? I will not take up more of your time before I give you the contents. Another peg.”
The refreshment was duly brought.
“Yoko first directed her attention to their meeting in Sydney when sentiment in favor of the Japanese ran high, and she presented him with the buttonhole, as you call it — the little bouquet of flowers for his coat. Ah, flowers! What have you to answer for? As Shelley says, or, was it Munchausen? ——”
My look brought him up with a round turn.
“He reminded her of what had subsequently passed at the Hotel Australia,” continued Sunotoko, “and he said he had carefully pressed the flowers, and that he would hand them back to her in Sydney on August 10th, 1908.”
“Impertinent bounder!” I muttered.
Sunotoko merely made a gesture.
“Well,” I said, “was that all?”
“No; that was not all.”
“Well; tell me all. What else did the scoundrel say?”
“I remember that part well because Yoko thought most of it. ‘The surprise is in the tail,’ as Roodyard Kipling says. The rest of the letter was this: ‘I think of you most as I saw you one night in Her Majesty’s Theatre with your lovely bosom and arms all bare. I could not keep my eyes off them.’”
I gritted my teeth.
“‘I was intoxicated. Ah, why do not you women who have a shop window for your charms, so to speak, have pity on the men who cannot obtain, however much they may desire, but cannot refrain from feasting the soul!’
“Are you listening, Mr. Danton?”
“I am listening,” I said, curtly. “Damn you,” I added, under my breath.
“Then the letter continued: ‘I love you, and will possess you. You shall dress that way for me. Some day there will be no laws in Australia — only what the Japanese enact. Each Japanese in authority will be a law unto himself. I shall be one. On August 10th, 1908, I shall hand you back the buttonhole of red rambler roses — test of my love for you — and claim you in return. You, the most beautiful flower in all the lands of the Southern Seas, will be mine. It is so written by the gods, and no human effort can alter destiny.’”
“Was that all?” I asked.
“There was a little more,” he said, looking at me curiously, with half a grin, I thought, “but I do not remember it.”
“You are sure you do not remember it?” I asked, glaring at him, “your memory has been wonderfully good so far.”
He shifted his seat, and then he said half to himself, so it seemed:
“Oh, I suppose it does not matter much. This was the remainder: ‘Dream every night and every day of the happiness awaiting you, and tell all your lady friends that the same glorious fate awaits them — all those that are beautiful — when the flag of the Rising Sun floats over Sydney Government House and Japanese warships are the dominating force in your beautiful harbour!’ Always a man for a joke was Yoko!”
“I also am fond of joking,” I said calmly, though the blood was swirling in my head, “and when I next meet your friend Major Yoko — be it in Sydney or Hell — I’ll make his monkey face unrecognisable!”
I noted a spasmodic clenching of Sunotoko’s hands, and a fierce gleam from his eyes.
He breathed heavily, but said nothing.
“If I also wring his neck,” I continued, “it is not likely that I shall apologise to him or his friends for so doing.”
I wanted to rouse Sunotoko in order that he might blurt out something, so that I might hit him, for I reckoned him as great a scoundrel as Yoko.
But he controlled himself with a great effort.
“Do not take it, seriously, my friend,” he said presently in oily tones, “Yoko was probably only joking — in bad taste, of course, but still only joking.”
“Oh, quite so,” I said, “He probably will not think my joke in the best taste! But what is this wild talk of the Japanese being masters of Sydney in 1908? Why, Japan is an ally of Britain.”
“True, and admires and loves Britain and the British. Oh, yes! Her love — what is it the poet says? Well, never mind, I will look it up, write it out, and send it to you. Ha, ha!”
I felt that the Brown bounder was laughing at me.
“But alliances do not last for ever, my friend. Every nation has to work out its own destiny quite independently of any other nation, and however much it admires or loves that nation.”
He smiled.
“You think then?”
“I am not an impulsive firework, like Yoko, but I think anything possible within a few years, though, mind you, I would not like to see it. Oh, no!”
“Liar!” I said, under my breath.
“As the poet says ——”
Hurriedly glancing at the time, I said I had to be going, so what the poet said apropos of the particular matter under discussion I do not know.
I left with a sense that Sunotoko had been amusing himself at my expense.
Source:
Rata, The Coloured Conquest, Sydney (NSW): N.S.W. Bookstall Co., 1904, pp. 37-42
Editor’s notes:
apropos = (French) à propos, literally “to purpose” (i.e. with regard to the purpose); pertinent, relevant; opportune, fitting, at the right time; with regard to the present topic, with reference to, with respect to, with regards to, in relation to
bairn = (Scottish) child
bounder = a dishonourable man, a man with low morals, a man who displays objectionable or offensive social behaviour, a man who behaves in a socially unacceptable or unpleasant manner (especially with ladies), a man who behaves in a morally reprehensible manner, a cad
Hamlet = a play by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
See: 1) “Hamlet”, Wikipedia
2) “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”, The Shakespeare Study Guide
3) “Hamlet (Modern, Editor’s Version)”, Internet Shakespeare Editions
Hotel Australia = the Australia Hotel, also known as the Hotel Australia, a hotel in Castlereagh Street, Sydney (NSW), which was opened in 1891, and closed in 1971; at the time of its construction, and for a long time afterwards, it was regarded as the top hotel in Australia (a different Hotel Australia was built in Melbourne in 1939, and was demolished in 1989)
See: 1) “Hotel Australia”, Dictionary of Sydney, 2008
2) “The Australia Hotel”, Wikipedia
3) “Hotel Australia”, Wikipedia
Kipling = Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), a British poet and writer; he was born in Bombay (India) to British parents, with the family subsequently moving to England when he was five years old; he was particularly well-known for his children’s stories in The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book
Munchausen = Baron Munchausen: a fictional character who was the narrator of tall tales, telling stories of his unlikely and truth-defying adventures; the character was based upon a German nobleman, Baron von Münchhausen (1720-1797)
peg = a strong alcoholic drink of a small measure, particularly referring to a drink of brandy or whisky
Rising Sun = the Naval Ensign of Japan, which features a red rising sun with red sun rays; it is known as the Rising Sun Flag, and has been used by Japan as a war flag or battle flag (it is distinct from the flag of Japan, which features a red disc, being a representation of the Sun, on a white background)
See: “Rising Sun Flag”, Wikipedia
Roodyard Kipling = Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), a British poet and writer; he was born in Bombay (India) to British parents, with the family subsequently moving to England when he was five years old; he was particularly well-known for his children’s stories in The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book
Shakespeare = William Shakespeare (1564-1616), an English playwright and poet
See: “William Shakespeare”, Wikipedia
Shelley = Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), an English poet
See: “Percy Bysshe Shelley”, Wikipedia
[Editor: Placed single quotation marks before and after “two heads are better than one, even if one is a sheep” (replaced the double quotation mark at the start of the phrase). Changed “Why Japan is an ally” to “Why, Japan is an ally”.]
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