stolidly alone. Alone in front of the French Legation is there some
commotion almost hourly. It is, however, only the arrival and
departure of Catholic priests posting to and from the Pei-t'ang about
that little business of forty or fifty marines _pour proteger nos
personnes et nos biens_, that is all. A singularly importunate fellow
this Monseigneur F----, our most reverend Vicar Apostolic of the
Manchu capital.




IV

OUR GUARDS ARRIVE


31st May, 1900.

* * * * *

We had been dining out, a number of us, this evening, with result that
the good wine and the good fare, for the Peking markets are admirable,
left us reasonably content and in quite a valorous spirit. The party I
was at was neither very large nor very small; we were eighteen, to be
exact, and the political situation was represented in all its gravity
by the presence of a Minister and his spouse. The former has always
been pessimistic, and so we had Boxers for soup, Boxers with the
_entrees_, and Boxers to the end. In fact, if the truth be told, the
Boxers surrounded us in a constant vapour of words so formidable that
one might well have reason to be alarmed. P----, the Minister, was,