or court use throughout the empire.

One day a number of officials came to us at the Peking University and
in the course of a conversation they said:

"The Emperor has heard that the foreigners have invented a talk box. Is
that true?"

"Quite true," we replied, "and as we have one in the physical
laboratory of the college we will let you see it."

We had one of the old Edison phonographs which worked with a pedal, and
looked very much like a sewing-machine, and we took them to the
laboratory, allowed one of them to talk into it, and then set the
machine to repeating what had been told it. The officials were
delighted and it was not long until they again appeared and insisted on
buying it as a present for the Emperor, for in this way better than any
other they might hope to obtain official recognition and position.

The Emperor then heard that the foreigners had invented a "fire-wheel
cart," but whether he had ever been informed that they had built a
small railroad at Wu-Sung near Shanghai, and that the Chinese had
bought it, and then torn it up and thrown it into the river we cannot
say. There are many things the officials and people do which never
reach the imperial ears. However that may be, when Kuang Hsu heard of
the railroad and the carts that were run by fire, he wanted one, and he
would not be satisfied until they had built a narrow gauge railroad
along the west shore of the lotus lake in the Forbidden City, and the
factories of Europe had made two small cars and an engine on which he
could take the court ladies for a ride on this unusual merry-go-round.
The road and the cars and the engine were still there when I visited
the Forbidden City in 1901, but they were carried away to Europe by
some of the allies as precious bits of loot, before the court returned.

Not long after he had heard of the railroads, he was told that the
foreigners also had "fire-wheel boats." Of course he wanted some, and
as I crossed the beautiful marble bridge that spans the lotus lake, I
saw anchored near by three small steam launches which had evidently
been used a good deal. I saw similar launches in the lake at the Summer
Palace, and was told that in the play days of his boyhood, Kuang Hsu
would have these launches hitched to the imperial barges and take the
ladies of the court for pleasure trips about the lake in the cool of
the summer evenings, as the Empress Dowager did her foreign visitors in
later times.

The Emperor in t