as earmarked Shantung,
and it is just like English bluntness to remind the would-be dominant
Power that there is a British sphere and a British colony in the
Chinese province, as well as a German sphere and a German colony. But
the German Minister, a _beau garcon_ with blue eyes and a handsome
moustache, says nothing, and is quite calm.

Meanwhile the cloud no bigger than your hand is quite unremarked by
the rank and file of Legation Street--that I will swear. Chinese
malcontents--"the Society of Harmonious Fists," particular habitat
Shantung province--are casually mentioned; but it is remembered that
the provincial governor of Shantung is a strong Chinaman, one Yuan
Shih-kai, who has some knowledge of military matters, and, better
still, ten thousand foreign-drilled troops. Shantung is all right,
never fear--such is the comment of the day.

But the political situation--the _situation politique_ as we call it
in our several conversations, which always have a diplomatic
turn--although not grave, is unhappy; everybody at least acknowledges
that. Peking has never been what it was before the Japanese war. In
the old days we were all something of a happy family. There were
merely the eleven Legations, the Inspectorate of Chinese Customs, with
the aged Sir R---- H---- at its head, and perhaps a few favoured
globe-trotters or nondescripts looking for rich concessions. Picnics
and dinners, races and excursions, were the order of the day, and
politics and political situations were not burning. Ministers
plenipotentiary and envoys extraordinary wore Terai hats, very old
clothes, and had an affable air--something like what Teheran must
still be. Then came the Japanese war, and the eternal political
situation. Russia started the ball rolling and the others kicked it
along. The Russo-Chinese Bank, appeared on the scenes led by the great
P----, a man with an ominous black portfolio continually under his
arm, as he hurried along Legation Street, and an intriguing expression
always on his dark face--a veritable master of men and moneys, they
say. This intriguing soon found Expression in the Cassini Convention,
denounced as untrue, and followed by a perfectly open and frank
Manchurian railway convention, a convention which, in spite of its
frankness, had future trouble written unmistakably on the face of it.
Besides these things there were always ominous reports of other
things--of great things being done secretly.

After the Russo-