Chapter XVIII: Singapore--The Humorist's Close Call

There are more different ways of getting in bad than there are to keep out of trouble--a lot more. Indeed, straight and narrow is the road. But there are lots of by-ways leading off from the safe and beaten path, from which one's feet should never stray. In going around the world one can't keep too sharp a lookout for the prescribed highway.

This homely, safe and sane reasoning comes to me with force as I sadly pen these lines here in Singapore, having turned off on a side street that _looked_ all right when I swerved--_i. e._, I knew it wasn't exactly the middle of the road, but I took a chance, because it looked inviting and I felt sure I could see my way back to the main line.

Leaving the Philippine Islands for Hong Kong, and taking a ship from there to Singapore is only a detail of my present perturbation.

That Hong Kong was an infected port, Black Plague being prevalent, is largely to blame.

I'd be easy in my mind this minute if Hong Kong had not been an infected port. Anyway, if my feet had slipped it would have been on a different orange peel or banana skin.

Singapore has very stringent health regulations against passengers arriving from Hong Kong.

To get into Singapore, to land at the port, one must sign what is called an "Undertaking"; the same being an agreement that if you stay in the town over twenty-four hours you agree to report at the health office in Singapore at 3 P. M. every day. Failing to do this, the penalty is arrest and a fine of $500.00.

The exact minute at which you must report is prescribed--3 P. M. There is no leeway given, as, between the hours of two and three, or three and four.

If you hail from Hong Kong you may land at Singapore, and stay there more than twenty-four hours if you sign an agreement that you will report at the health office at 3 P. M. sharp, daily. Failing this, to the dungeon and $500.00, please.

My only object in coming to Singapore is to tranship for Rangoon; and, as we sailed up to quarantine at 8 this morning, we passed my ship laying at anchor, scheduled to sail for Rangoon at 5 P. M. today.

A row of "undesirables" from Hong Kong for Singapore ranged up in the dining saloon before an austere and awful health official, and were put through the thirty-second degree--it was a meek and patient lot of lambs that passed before the throne of his majesty.

When it came my turn, with my eye on the ship that was going to bear me hence from Singapore, as the gruelling questions were put to me, I told the official I was going to shake Singapore at 5 P. M. today.

Now it will be necessary for you to know the English better than perhaps you do, indeed, even with this increased knowledge you'll still be short unless you know the Singapore English, and, even with that knowledge, you won't be fully enlightened unless you've come in contact with the Singapore English official, to realize what a regular Daniel in the lion's den I was to tell that being that I proposed to "shake" Singapore.

Shake Singapore!

Ye gods!

Tell a Singapore official to his face that you are going to shake the town! A Yankee at that, and from Hong Kong to boot!

A Singapore Englishman feels about Hong Kong, even when not infected, as a St. Paul man used to feel about Minneapolis before Minneapolis put it out of the running.

That Rangoon steamer was due to sail at 5 P. M. this very day, or I wouldn't have dared.

A laugh went down the line of crushed candidates for landing at the heavenly port of Singapore, which helped me to bear the jove-like frown of the official--it helped a lot. It egged me on to further deeds of daring; for when he handed me a duplicate of the undertaking I had signed, to remind me of what I was up against if I didn't report to him at 3 sharp the following day, if I was still in town, with the remark: "Right-o, see that you report at the health office daily at 3 P. M. every day you're in town after today"--with my eye on that ship for Rangoon I came back with: "Right-o, if I don't shake Singapore today you'll find me on the stoop of your office daily at 2:59, so you can feel my pulse and look at my tongue. But, oh man, my only object in coming to Singapore at all is to get out of it. Wouldn't have come to Singapore if there had been a way around it. I don't like Singapore. I think it a measly town. I like Hong Kong. Hong Kong is a nice town. It's got Singapore beaten forty ways"--and it made a hit with the crowd, and I swelled out my chest and swaggered away, and thought I was _funny_.

Now word has just come to me that my ship won't sail today. Owing to unforeseen delays, she won't sail till tomorrow at 5 P. M., and it's the ship's delay, and "the haughtiness of office" for me. I feel just like the melancholy Dane in his famous soliloquy.

I'm in the same fix another fellow was, who thought _he_ would be funny. He was standing on the rear platform of a train that was just pulling out from a town in Illinois, noted for its blood-thirsty, scrappy natives. The train was getting under good headway when this "humorist" thought it would be funny to shake his fist at one of the natives standing along the line, a great big especially vicious-looking citizen, and to promise him one good thrashing the next time he (the humorist) came that way.

Just then the train stopped and backed down to the station onto a siding.

With a blood-curdling whoop that native jumped aboard the train.

The humorist, who was wearing a wide-brimmed, conspicuous sombrero, ducked into the car, and espying an English tourist dozing and wearing a modest little derby, the "funny man" gently lifted the derby from the dozing passenger's head and set his own sombrero in its place, and sat down two seats back and was nonchalantly looking out of the window as the native raged into the car looking for blood and that fellow with a hat.

There was no mistaking the hat; he spotted his man and was going to eat him alive.

The poor bewildered English tourist didn't know what it was all about. But that didn't go--nothing but blood would answer. It was looking dark for the bewildered Englishman when the rear platform orator stepped up and pacified the native by telling him that the gentleman didn't mean anything--that he wasn't quite right in his _head_, and in that way blood was averted.

The native got off; the train pulled out, this time for good. After it was fully forty miles from that station, and going sixty miles an hour, the owner of the sombrero stepped across the aisle, and, addressing the bewildered passenger, said: "Excuse me, sir, but I believe you are wearing my hat." B. p. reached for the hat on his head, saw it wasn't his (it was an afternoon of surprises), and handed it to the rightful owner, and, as he was a perfect gentleman, he thanked the man again for his presence of mind in saving him from a beating up. The rear platform humorist, orator, funny man, begged him not to mention it, and the incident was closed.

The funny man left the train at Milwaukee at supper time. The bewildered passenger stayed on and sat all night in a brown study--seemed to be trying to solve something. He reached St. Paul in the morning at sun-up, and with the coming of a new day, light dawned and he jumped up, shook his fist in the direction of Milwaukee, and said: "And domned if I didn't thank him twice, when I should 'ave punched his 'ead!"

Well, it's 7 P. M. I should have been two hours on my way to Rangoon. I'll drop this letter in the mail to catch the P. & O. going west, eat my dinner, and retire and get a good night's sleep; and after breakfast tomorrow I'll think till 2:59 P. M. There's no use worrying, for if worry gets you going it will keep you on the run. No matter what the hole you're in, there is a deeper one. I'll get up in the morning and I'll think, and think, and think how I can put that dread official on the blink, blink, blink. But a Singapore official, oh, he's a mighty gun, and this Singapore official he weighs about a ton--I guess. Still, I will not worry, but then, for all of that, I wish that _I'd_ been wearing a great big sombrero hat.