good deal of money coming out, and when I got here, I knew,
unless something turned up, I was a gone coon. We got off Taku
forts Sunday evening and the next morning we went inside; the
channel is very narrow and sown with torpedoes. We struck
one--an electric one--in coming up, but it didn't go off. We were
until 10.30 P.M. in coming up to Tien-Tsin--thirty miles in a
straight line, but nearly seventy by the river, which is only about
one hundred feet wide--and we grounded ten times.

"Well--at last we moored and went ashore. Brace Girdle, an
engineer, and I went to the hotel, and the first thing we heard
was--that _peace was declared!_ I went back on board ship, and I
didn't sleep much--I never was so blue in my life. I knew if they
didn't want me that I might as well give up the ghost, for I could
never get away from China. Well--I worried around all night
without sleep, and in the morning I felt as if I had been drawn
through a knot-hole. I must have lost ten pounds. I went around
about 10 A.M. and gave my letters to Pethick, an American U. S.
Vice-Consul and interpreter to Li Hung Chang. He said he would
fix them for me. Then I went back to the ship, and as our captain
was going up to see Li Hung Chang, I went along out of
desperation. We got in, and after a while were taken in through
corridor after corridor of the Viceroy's palace until we got into the
great Li, when we sat down and had tea and tobacco and talked
through an interpreter. When it came my turn he asked: 'Why did
you come to China?' I said: 'To enter the Chinese service for the
war.' 'How do you expect to enter?' 'I expect _you_ to give me a
commission!' 'I have no place to offer you.' 'I think you have--I
have come all the way from America to get it.' 'What would you
like?' 'I would like to get the new torpedo-boat and go down the