Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www. million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SCENE II A small verandah on an upper storey of the British American Tobacco Company's premises, the upper part of which the staff lives in. At the back are heavy arches of whitewashed masonry and a low wall which serves as a parapet. Green blinds are drawn. There is a bamboo table on which are copies of illustrated papers. A couple of long bamboo chairs and two or three smaller arm chairs. The floor is tiled. On one of the long chairs Harold Knox is lying asleep. He is a young man of pleasing appearance. He wears white ducks, but he has taken off his coat, which lies on a chair, and his collar and tie and pin. They are on the table by his side. He is troubled by a fly and, half waking but with his eyes still closed, tries to drive it away. Knox. Curse it. [He op ens his eyes and yawns.] Boy! Wu. [Outside.] Ye. Knox. What's the time? [Wu comes in; he is a Chinese servant in a long white gown with a black cap on his head. He bears a tray on which is a bottle of whisky, a glass and a syphon. Wu. My no sabe. Knox. Anyhow it's time for a whisky and soda. [Wu puts the tray down on the table. Knox smiles.] Intelligent anticipation. Model servant and all that sort of thing. [Wu pours out the whisky.] You don't care if I drink myself to death, Wu-do you? [Wu smiles, showing all his teeth.] Fault of the climate. Give me the glass. [Wu does so.] You're like a mother to me, Wu. [He drinks and puts down the glass.] By George, I feel another man. The bull-dog breed, Wu. Never say die. Rule Britannia. Pull up the blinds, you lazy blighter. The sun's off and the place is like a oven. [Wu goes over and pulls up one blind after the other. An expanse of blue sky is seen. Henry Anderson comes in. He is a man of thirty, fair, good-looking, with a pleasant, honest face. His obvious