in my study he said:

"It is drawing near to the New Year. Do you celebrate the New Year in
your honourable country?"

"Yes," I replied, "though not quite the same as you do here."

"Do you fire off crackers?"

"Yes, in the matter of firecrackers, we celebrate very much the same as
you do."

"And do you settle up all your debts as we do here?"

"I am afraid we do not. That is not a part of our New Year celebration."

"Our Prince is going to take on two more concubines this New Year," he
volunteered.

"Ah, indeed, I thought he had three concubines already."

"So he does, but he is entitled to five."

"I should think it would make trouble in a family for one man to have
so many women," I ventured.

He waved his hand in that peculiar way the Chinese have of saying,
don't mention it, as he answered:

"That is a difficult matter to discuss. Naturally if this woman sees
the Prince talking to that one, this one is going to eat vinegar,"
which gives us a glimpse of some of the domestic difficulties in
Chinese high life. However it is a fact worth remembering that the
Manchu prince does not receive his full stipend from the government
until he has five concubines, each of whom is the mother of a son.

The leading princes of the new regime are Ching, Su, and Pu-lun. Prince
Ching has been the leader of the Manchus ever since the downfall of
Prince Kung. He has held almost every office it was in the power of the
Empress Dowager to give, "though disliked by the Emperor." He was made
president of the Tsung-li Yamen in 1884, and from that time until the
present has never been degraded, or in any way lost the imperial
favour. He is small in stature, has none of the elements of the great
man that characterized Li Hung-chang and Chang Chih-tung, or Prince
Kung, but he has always been characterized by that diplomacy which has
kept him one of the most useful officials in close connection with the
Empress Dowager. It is to his credit moreover that the legations were
preserved from the Boxers in the siege of 1900.

Prince Su is the only one of the eight hereditary princes who holds any
office that brings him into intimate contact with the foreigners.
During the Boxer siege he gave his palace for the use of the native
Christians, and at the close was made collector of the customs duties
(octoroi) at the city gates. Never had there been any one in charge of
this post who turned in as large proportion of the total collections