matter what happens outside, Peking is safe, that is your dictum, and
the dictum of the day. So, yawning and somewhat tired of the evening's
convivialities, we go our several ways home, in our Peking carts and
our official chairs, and are soon lost in sleep--dreaming, perhaps,
that we have been too long in this dry Northern climate, and that it
is really affecting one's nerves.




III

OVERCAST SKIES


28th May, 1900.

* * * * *

It is only four days since we discussed the Vicar Apostolic's letter,
and laughed somewhat at French excitability; but in four days what a
change! The cloud no bigger than your hand is now bigger than your
whole body, bigger, indeed, than the combined bodies of all your
neighbours, supposing you could spread them fantastically in great
layers across the skies. What, then, has happened?

It is that the Boxers, christened by us, as you will remember, but two
or three short weeks ago, have blossomed forth with such fierce growth
that they have become the men of the hour to the exclusion of
everything else, and were one to believe one tithe of the talk