Chapter 5 - Page 2

markets insist on a good-looking
leaf, with polish, face and curl to it, and in this, as in other
businesses, the call of the markets is the law. The factory floors are
made slippery with the tread of bare-footed coolies, who shout as the
tea whirls through its transformations. The over-note to the clamour--an
uncanny thing too--is the soft rustle-down of the tea itself--stacked in
heaps, carried in baskets, dumped through chutes, rising and falling in
the long troughs where it is polished, and disappearing at last into the
heart of the firing-machine--always this insistent whisper of moving
dead leaves. Steam-sieves sift it into grades, with jarrings and
thumpings that make the floor quiver, and the thunder of steam-gear is
always at its heels; but it continues to mutter unabashed till it is
riddled down into the big, foil-lined boxes and lies at peace.

A few days ago the industry suffered a check which, lasting not more
than two minutes, lost several hundred pounds of hand-fired tea. It was
something after this way. Into the stillness of a hot, stuffy morning
came an unpleasant noise as of batteries of artillery charging up all
the roads together, and at least one bewildered sleeper waking saw his
empty boots where they 'sat and played toccatas stately at the
clavicord.' It was the washstand really but the effect was awful. Then a
clock fell and a wall cracked, and heavy hands caught the house by the
roof-pole and shook it furiously. To preserve an equal mind when things
are hard is good, but he who has not fumbled desperately at bolted
jalousies that will not open while a whole room is being tossed in a
blanket does not know how hard it is to find any sort of mind at all.
The end of the terror was inadequate--a rush into the still, heavy
outside air, only to find the' servants in the garden giggling (the
Japanese would giggle through the Day of Judgment) and to learn that the
earthquake was over. Then came the news, swift borne from the business
quarters below the hill, that the coolies of certain factories had fled
shrieking at the first shock, and that all the tea in the pans was
burned to a crisp. That, certainly, was some consolation for undignified
panic; and there remained the hope that a few tall chimneys up the line
at Tokio would have collapsed. They stood firm, however, and the local
papers, used to this kind of thing, merely spoke of the shock as
'severe.' Earthquakes are demoralising; but they bring out all the
weaknesses of human nature. First is downright dread; the stage
of--'only let me get into the open and I'll reform,' then the impulse to
send news of the most terrible shock of modern times flying east and
west among the cables. (Did not your own hair stand straight on end,
and,