CHAPTER VIII
EXPERIENCES IN BUSINESS
The next turn I took, after leaving the
Imperial Customs, was clerk in an English
house — tea and silk merchants. During the
few months that I was with them, I gained quite
an insight into mercantile business, and the
methods of conducting it, which proved to be
profitable knowledge and experience to me later
on. Six months after I had entered upon my
new sphere as a make-shift, the firm dissolved
partnership, which once more threw me out of
a position, and I was again cast upon the sea
of uncertainty. But during my connection with
the firm, two little incidents occurred which I
must not fail to relate.
One Thursday evening, as I was returning home from a prayer meeting held in the Union Chapel in Shanghai, I saw ahead of me on Szechuen Road in front of the Episcopal church, a string of men; each had a Chinese lantern swinging in the air over his head, and they were singing and shouting as they zigzagged
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