“Filthy-minded old bastard,” he muttered viciously under his breath. No wonder the world's such a rotten place, rotten and filthy and cheap and smelly. Where is that place they talk of and paint nice pictures of and describe in all the homey magazines? Where is that place with the clean, white cottages surrounding the new, red-brick church with the clean, white steeple, where the families all have two children, one boy and one girl, and a shiny new car in the garage and a dog and a cat and life is like living in the land of the happily-ever-after?

It wasn't his fault. Neither was it the fault of his mother, who was now dead because of a conviction which was only a dream that blew up in her face. It wasn't the fault of the half a billion Chinamen who hated the ninety million Japanese and got only hatred in return. One only had to look about to see all the hatred in the world.