I was stung by the contempt in this remark, and I wanted to show the head tracker that I knew a thing or two, and I thought of telling him that I could rig a bronze-and-wood pulley-block that would be a hundred times more efficient as a way of holding the towline than the primitive iron loop fastened to the parrel, and besides would not have to be repaired in many years’ time. But the Chinese word for “pulley” would not come to me. I knew I had learned the word; I had actually thought of it on the junk a few days before, yet now it would not come to the service of my vanity. This frustration upset me even further, and I thought of my dam, and of what a crime it was that this man confronting me should have to spend the years of his life towing a junk up this dangerous river. I thought: we speak of donkey engines, horse power—how horrible to use the strength of men for the work of animals and motors!

“In my country,” I said, “we have engines that would be able to haul your boats over the rapids.”

Indeed I had forgotten Su-ling’s warning.

Old Pebble was silent for a long time. Then in a tight, constrained voice he said, “Your engines cost too much. Everything costs too much in your country.”

“Engines are cheaper than men.”

“Foreign steamships have bad engines. They stop in the middle of rapids, and the steamships go on the rocks. This happens all the time. Your steamships are laid up for repairs three days for every one they spend on the river.”

It was true; I had heard that the ships of the firm that was plying the Yangtze had had more than their share of bad luck. I felt sick at heart. I wanted to tell the head tracker that I had come to China with the idea of trying to help people like him. Yet I also felt compelled to let him know in some way that I was educated and he was not. I was casting about for something to say that would serve my double purpose—I was thinking of saying something of the waste of the farmer boy who had hurt his ankle the day before and had been cast ashore like refuse just that morning—when the head tracker lifted his face from his work with a very angry expression, and he said:

“Do you hear or not hear? This thing”—he shook the parrel in my face—“was not made to be looked at.”

I was amazed by the ferocity with which he spoke these words, and I stood up. I turned away and went aft. I thought then of the word for “pulley.” Hua-lun, pulley. A wooden block with a bronze sheave and roller bearings would be a thousand times better than an old bent iron snatch-ring on a bamboo parrel!