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- was getting on towards the fifties;-
- my hair was slowly growing grizzled;
- and, though my health was excellent,
- yet painfully the thought beset me:
- Who knows how soon the hour may strike,
- the jury-verdict be delivered
- that parts the sheep and goats asunder?
- What could I do? To stop the trade
- with China was impossible.
- A plan I hit on-opened straightway
- a new trade with the self-same land.
- I shipped off idols every spring,
- each autumn sent forth missionaries,
- supplying them with all they needed,
- as stockings, Bibles, rum, and rice-
MR. COTTON
- Yes, at a profit?
PEER
- Why, of course.
- It prospered. Dauntlessly they toiled.
- For every idol that was sold
- they got a coolie well baptised,
- so that the effect was neutralised.
- The mission-field lay never fallow,
- for still the idol-propaganda
- the missionaries held in check.
MR. COTTON
- Well, but the African commodities?
PEER
- There, too, my ethics won the day.
- I saw the traffic was a wrong one
- for people of a certain ag
