that he was worn out with the strain of eighteen hours' work a day,
and used to see authors creeping in through the keyhole and wake in
the night to find illuminated letters dancing a witches' dance around
his bed.

Then, just at the critical moment of his life--in the spring of
1854--the British Foreign Office gave a nomination for the Consular
Service in China to each of the three Irish Queen's Colleges, Belfast,
Cork and Galway. He immediately abandoned all idea of reading for
a fellowship, and applied. So did thirty-six others. A competitive
examination was announced, but when the College authorities saw
Hart's name among the rest, they gave the nomination to him, _without
examination_.

Two months later he presented himself at the Foreign Office in London
and saw the Under-Secretary of State, Mr. (afterwards Lord) Hammond,
who gave him some parting advice. "When you reach Hongkong," said he,
"_never_ venture into the sun without an umbrella, and never go snipe
shooting without top boots pulled up well over the thighs." As no
snipe have ever been seen on Hongkong, the last bit of counsel was as
absurd as the first was sensible.

He actually started for China in May 1854. It is not easy to imagine
in these feverish days of travel what that journey must have meant to
a young Irish lad brought up in a small town lad to whom even London
probably seemed very far away. But the mothers of other sons can
give a pretty shrewd guess at how the mere thought of it must have
terrified those he was leaving behind. "Will he come back a heathen?"
one might ask, and another--but never aloud--"Will he come at all?"