Yet he had let the profits lie there, if there were
any, maybe thinking all along of the handsome tomb he was putting
up for himself, when his time came. You couldn't guess all his
Mongolian thoughts, nor those of his son, Fu Shan, of whom Sadler
asked medicine for a dyspeptic soul. Fu Shan said, "Go lun joss house
by Langoon." Sadler didn't seem to care about the business part of it
either, though it looked interesting. He only wanted the medicine.
Days and nights we talked it over, and got no further than that, and
drew nearer the East. The East is a muddy sea with no bottom, and it
swallows a man like a fog bank swallows a ship.
Sadler made some verses that he called his "Prayer;"--"Sadler's
prayer," and he told me them one wet day, when a half gale was
blowing, and he sat smoking with his feet hitched over the rail. He
appeared to be trying to get a bead on infinity across the point of
his shoe. It ran this way, beginning, "Lord God that o'erulest":
"Lord God that o'er-rulest
The waters, and coolest
The face of the foolish
With the touch of thy death,
I, Sadler, a Yankee,
Lean, leathery, lanky,
Red-livered and cranky,
And weary of breath,
"That hain't no theology
But a sort of doxology,
Here's my apology,
Maker of me,
Here where I'm sittin',
Smooth as a kitten,
Smokin' and spittin'
Into the sea.
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