objection.

It so happened that the very day this message went to Paris, Sir Harry
Parkes's funeral took place. After a useful and eventful life he
died, as every one knows, at the summit of his ambitions while he was
British Minister in Peking. Just as the I.G. was going into the chapel
for the service, one of the Legation Secretaries drew him aside to
communicate a most important piece of news. A wire had come in only
a few minutes before offering "the appointment of Her Britannic
Majesty's Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary at Peking
to Sir Robert Hart." To say the I.G. was surprised is not to say
enough. The offer, coming as it did under such solemn circumstances,
made an impression upon him too deep for words. Looking down at the
coffin half hidden in flowers, he could not help feeling the vanity
of earthly glories. "We brought nothing into this world, and it is
certain we can take nothing out," said the voice of the preacher. The
Envoy Extraordinary and the beggar travel towards the same goal, and
one is scarcely more indispensable than the other. Any pride he might
have had in the new dignity was most effectively taken out of him,
and I think that never in his life did the I.G. feel a deeper humility
than on this day when, invited to take the Legation, he stood the one
black-coated coated figure amid a blaze of diplomatic uniforms.

[Illustration: THE INSPECTORATE STREET BEFORE 1900.]

In the evening Mr. O'Conor (afterwards Sir Nicholas), the First
Secretary of the British Legation, came to dine with him and hear
his answer--which was that for the present he could not take up
the appointment as British Minister because of those Franco-Chinese
negotiations. So well had the secret been kept this time that O'Conor