From
the "Cape of Good Cheer," where many bottles glistened in rows inside,
came a braying upon the conch, and a flame of burnt brandy danced along
the bar to the honour and propitiation of Lakshmi, that the able-bodied
seaman might be thirsty when he came, for the "Cape of Good Cheer" did
not owe its prosperity, as its name might suggest, to any Providence of
Christian theology. But most of the brightness abode in the Chinamen's
shoe-shops, where many lamps shone on the hammering and the stitching.
There were endless shoe-shops, and they all belonged to Powson or
Singson or Samson, while one signboard bore the broad impertinence,
"Macpherson." The proprietors stood in the door, the smell came out in
the street--that smell of Chinese personality steeped in fried oil and
fresh leather that out-fans even the south wind in Bentinck street. They
were responsible but not anxious, the proprietors; they buried their fat
hands in their wide sleeves and looked up and down, stolid and smiling.
They stood in their alien petticoat trousers for the commercial
stability of the locality, and the rows of patent-leather slippers that
glistened behind them testified to it further.
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