TOKIO, May 22nd, 1904.
[DEAR MOTHER:]
You will be glad to hear that the correspondents at the
front are not allowed within two and a half miles of the
firing line. This I am sure you will approve. Their tales of
woe have just been received
here, and they certainly are having a hard time. The one
thing they all hope for is that the Japs will order them home.
My temper is vile to-day, as I cannot enjoy the gentle
pleasures of this town any longer and with this long trip to
Port Arthur before I can turn towards home. I am as cross as
a sick bear. We were at Yokohama when your last letters came
and they were a great pleasure. I got splendid news of
The
Dictator. Yesterday we all went to Yokohama. There are four
wild American boys here just out of Harvard who started the
cry of "Ping Yang" for the "Ping Yannigans" they being the
"Yannigans." They help to make things very lively and are
affectionately regarded by all classes. Yesterday, they and
Fox and Cecil and I went to the races, with five ricksha boys
each, and everybody lost his money except myself. But it was
great fun. It rained like a seive, and all the gentlemen
riders fell off, and every time we won money our thirty
ricksha men who would tell when we won by watching at which
window we had bet, would cheer us and salaam until to save our
faces we had to scatter largesses. Egan turned up in the
evening and dined with John and Cecil and me in the Grand
Hotel and told us first of all the story the correspondents
had brought back to Kobbe for which every one from the
Government down has been waiting. It would make lively
reading if any of us dared to write it. To-day he made his
protests to Fukushima as we mapped them out last night and the
second lot will I expect be treated better. But, as the first
lot were the important men representing the important
syndicates the harm, for the Japs, has been done. Of course,
much they do is through not knowing our points of view. To
them none of us is of any consequence
except that he is a nuisance, and while they are
conversationally perfect in politeness, the regulations they
inflict are too insulting. However, you don't care about
that, and neither do I. I am going to earn my money if I
possibly can, and come home.
DICK.
