nd him. The Chinese officials, for
instance--who suddenly became as anxious for Western comforts as they
had hitherto detested them--drove over modernized roads in carriages;
he clung to his old-fashioned sedan chair. The majority of the
besieged bought--or otherwise acquired loot; he never spent a penny on
it, and never entered what the looters euphemistically liked to call
"deserted houses."

[Illustration: ANOTHER WINTER VIEW OF SIR ROBERT HART'S GARDEN,
PEKING.]

The whole community took advantage of the opening of the Temple of
Heaven and the Temple of Agriculture, fine parks free from dust and
the noise of the city; he never entered either. Nor at a time when the
whole world was discussing the Winter Palace and the Forbidden City,
did he consider that the dictates of good breeding permitted him to go
where the rightful owners would have refused him entrance. He took his
outings as usual either in his own garden or on the city wall, from
which he could watch the slow rebuilding of the Legation Quarter, a
perfect _salade Russe_ of architecture, with German gables, classic
Venetian gateways and Flemish turrets jostling one another.

This calm life continued for four peaceful years. Then he was startled
again by a bolt from the blue. The Inspectorate of Customs was
transferred by Imperial Edict from the Wai-Wu-Pu to the Shui-Wu-Ch'u,
a Board specially created to control it.

The real meaning of the change was not easy to fathom, but everybody
seized the opportunity to talk at once--all the newspapers and the
correspondents and the political experts; to criticize, to prophesy,
to predict, to shake their heads--all but one man, the man most
concerned. And he said nothing; he listened while the others
authoritatively stated what he must think, what he did think, and what
he would think later. To tell the truth he thought less of his own
position, the prestige of which was undoubtedly affected by a move
that turned him from a semi-political agent into a simple departmental
head, than he did of the future of his service. Consequently, at a
juncture when he had the best excuse for deserting a post which had
partially deserted him, he remained to reassure outsiders as well
as employees and to prove that radical as the Edict seemed, its real
meaning was not half so disturbing as it appeared.

[Illustration: TING'RH, OR CHINESE PAVILION, IN SIR ROBERT HART'S
GARDEN, PEKING.]

Anxiety could never have driven him away; i