gn mandarin. Did the blank, blank, blank
cook, the worm and no man, not know that a foreigner was among them? And
then they fell to piling up the ignominy again and placing to the cook's
dishonor various degrees of lowliest origin common among the Chinese
proletariat, which, thank Heaven, I did not quite understand.

That evening all Chao-chow came to honor me in my room, and to admire
and ask to be given all I had in my boxes. That it was all a huge
revelation to many who came and inquired who I might be, and whence I
might have come, was quite evident. One fellow, dressed gaudily in
expensive silks and satins--probably borrowed--came with pomp and
pride; and disappointment was writ large upon his ugly face when he
learned that I could not, or would not, speak with him. He mentioned
that he was one of the cultured of the city. But the Chinese are all
more or less cultured. My own coolies, although not knowing a character,
are really "cultured"--they are the most polite men I have ever
traveled with. The culture, at any rate, although more apparent than
real, has a universality in China which the foreigner must observe in
moving among the people, and which as a sort of lubrication, makes the
wheels of society run smoother. This man was not cultured in the matter
of taste in the choice of colors. He was altogether frightfully lacking
in sense of harmony, and when one saw the little boy who trotted along
with him, one might have thought that Joseph's coat had been revived for
my especial edification. He was a peculiar being, this highly-colored
man. He would persist in sitting down on his haunches, despite frequent
invitations to use a chair--how is it all Orientals can do this, and not
one European out of fifty?

Lao Chang afterwards informed me that this man's wife had just presented
him with a second son, and great jubilation was taking place. The birth
of a child, especially of a boy, is a great event in any Chinese
household, and considerable anxiety is felt lest demons should be
lurking about the house and cause trouble. A sorcerer is called in just
before the birth, to exorcise all evil influences from the house and
secure peace. This is the "Exorcism of Great Peace." Simultaneously
comes the midwife. Should the birth be attended with great pain and
difficulty, recourse is had to crackers, the firing of guns, or whatever
similar device can be thought of to scare off the demons. Solicitude is
often felt that the fi