ABSTRACT
T HERE was one period of several months whenanyone who visited my office in Shanghai would have found, in one of the inner rooms, a round, clothcovered table with chairs, cigarettes and ash-trays, a pack of playing-cards, and some piles of neatly stacked poker chips. It looked very much like a layout for a friendly poker game, and that is exactly what it was. If the visitor had remained for any length of time he would, in all probability, have seen one of my Chinese staff come in and consult with me, and we would have gone to the table, called in two or three clerks to help us, shuffled the cards, counted out the chips and played a few hands ofpoker with a good deal of Anglo-Chinese conversation. Then he would have seen us, apparently, go back to work again.
