ed, he questions and demands the exact
number of invulnerables that can be placed in line; and is forthwith
assured, with braggart Chinese choruses, that they are as locusts,
that the whole earth swarms with them, that the movement is
unconquerable. Still unconvinced, the false eunuch takes his
departure, and then the Throne decrees and counter decrees in agonised
Edicts. It is noticed, too, that the distributors of the official
organ, the _Peking Gazette_, no longer staidly walk their rounds,
pausing to gossip with their friends, but run with their wooden-block
printed Edicts wet from the presses, and shout indiscreetly to the
passers-by, "Aside, our business is important." In all faith there is
something in this movement. It is also noticed that roughness and
rudeness are growing in the streets; little things that are always the
precursors of the coming storm in the East are freely indulged in, and
"foreign devil" is now almost a chorus. The atmosphere is obviously
unwholesome, but guards have been ordered and it will soon be well.
All these other things of which I speak are merely native reports....

Meanwhile each Legation does not forget its dignity, but walks
stolidly alone. Alone in front of the French Legation is there some
commotion almost hourly. It is, however, only the arrival and
departure of Catholic priests posting to and from the Pei-t'ang about
that little business of forty or fifty marines _pour proteger nos
personnes et nos biens_, that is all. A singularly importunate fellow
this Monseigneur F----, our most reverend Vicar Apostolic of the
Manchu capital.

IV

OUR GUARDS ARRIVE

31st May, 1900.

* * * * *

We had been dining out, a number of us, this evening, with result that
the good wine and the good fare, for the Peking markets are admirable,
left us reasonably content and in quite a valorous spirit. The party I
was at was neither very large nor very small; we were eighteen, to be
exact, and the political situation was represented in all its gravity
by the presence of a Minister and his spouse. The former has always
been pessimistic, and so we had Boxers for soup, Boxers with the
_entrees_, and Boxers to the end. In fact, if the truth be told, the
Boxers surrounded us in a constant vapour of words so formidable that
one might well have reason to be alarmed. P----, the Minister, was,
indeed, very talkative and gesticulative; his wife was sad and sighed