his feelings at the theatre; indeed, it may be
questioned if strong emotion is ever aroused in his breast, except by
the first addresses of the junior members of the China Inland Mission,
the thrilling effect of whose Chinese exhortations is recorded every
month in _China's Millions_.

The Manager of the telegraph, to show his good feeling, presented me
with a stale tin of condensed milk. His second clerk and operator was
the most covetous man I met in China. He begged in turn for nearly every
article I possessed, beginning with my waterproof, which I did not give
him, and ending with the empty milk tin, which I did, for "Give to him
that asketh," said Buddha, "even though it be but a little." The chief
operator in charge of the telegraph offices speaks a little English, and
is the medium by which English messages and letters are translated into
Chinese for the information of the officials. His name is Chueh. His
method of translation is to glean the sense of a sentence by the
probable meaning, derived from an inaccurate Anglo-Chinese dictionary,
of the separate words of the sentence. He is a broken reed to trust to
as an interpreter. Chueh is not an offensively truthful man. When he
speaks to you, you find yourself wondering if you have ever met a
greater liar than he. "Three men's strength," he says, "cannot prevail
against truth;" yet he is, I think, the greatest liar I have met since I
left Morocco. Indeed, the way he spoke of my head boy Laotseng, who was
undoubtedly an honest Chinese, and the opinion Laotseng emphatically
held of Chueh, was a curious repetition of an experience that I had not
long ago in Morocco. I was living in Tangier, when I had occasion to go
to Fez and Mequinez. My visit was arranged so hurriedly that I had no
means of learning what was the degree of personal esteem attaching to
the gentleman, a resident of Tangier, who was to be my companion. I
accordingly interrogated the hotel-keeper, Mr. B. "What kind of a man is
D.?" I asked. "Not a bad fellow," he replied, "if he wasn't such a
blank, blank awful liar!" On the road to Wazan I became very friendly
with D., and one day questioned him as to his private regard for Mr. B.
of the hotel. "A fine fellow B. seems," I said, "very friendly and
entertaining. What do you think of him?" "What do I think of him?" he
shouted in his falsetto. "I _know_ he's the biggest blank liar in
Morocco." It was pleasant to meet, even in Morocco, such a rare case of