30 CRISIS IN CHINA HI
real newspaper-man, so he needed convincing on any
subject. We expressed polite scepticism.
But the Father had the itch to proselytise. His
enthusiasm flowed like a wave. Now and again I
caught Chou's eye---he was regarding this strange
missionary with something like holy awe. \Ve had
introduced him as a graduate from a Mission school.
It was all so unreal that I felt as though we were
masqueraders at a fancy-dress hall.
"And you'd think/' the good priest was saying,
uthat they wouldn't have much time for a man of my
cloth. But I never met friendlier people. They took
me to their anti-religious museums, and thought
IM be shocked/' He chuckled in Chestertonian
fashion. uThey were the ones that were shocked,
when I told them there was nothing there we wouldn't
have in a good scientific exhibition in the States.
They must have thought the capitalists were getting
soft/*
We parted from Father Cochran with regret.
There are too few of his kind in China, as I was to
discover later. His voice boomed down the corridor
after us. ** „ . . And remember, boys, just because
I'm in orders, I don't need to close my own eyes.
Keep an open mind, I say, keep sm open mind/*
It was impossible to sleep in the hothouse atmo-
sphere of that first-class compartment. About four
o'clock 1 came out into the corridor for air; in less
than an hour we would reach Shihchiachuaitg, which
is the junction for Tatyuanfu. Tine train rolled along
with that oscillating motion peculiar to the Peking-
Hankow railway, which has been fought over and
blown up so many times during civil wars that neither