forewarns me to anticipate a particularly lively and interesting time
in invading that country with a vehicle so strange and incomprehensible
to the Celestial mind as a bicycle. This experienced gentleman informs
me, among other interesting things, that if five hundred chattering
Celestials batter down the door and swarm unannounced at midnight into
the apartment where I am endeavoring to get the first wink of sleep
obtained for a whole week, instead of following the natural inclinations
of an AngloSaxon to energetically defend his rights with a stuffed club,
I shall display Solomon-like wisdom by quietly submitting to the invasion,
and deferentially bowing to Chinese inquisitiveness. If, on an occasion
of this nature, one stationed himself behind the door, and, as a sort
of preliminary warning to the others, greeted the first interloper with
the business end of a boot-jack, he would be morally certain of a lively
one-sided misunderstanding that might end disastrously to himself;
whereas, by meekly submitting to a critical and exhaustive examination
by the assembled company, he might even become the recipient of an apology
for having had to batter down the door in order to satisfy their curiosity.
One needs more discretion than valor in dealing with the Chinese. At
noon on the 19th we reach Liverpool, where I find a letter awaiting me
from A. J. Wilson (Faed), inviting me to call on him at Powerscroft
House, London, and offering to tandem me through the intricate mazes of
the West End; likewise asking whether it would be agreeable to have him,
with others, accompany me from London down to the South coast - a programme
to which, it is needless to say, I entertain no objections. As the custom-
house officer wrenches a board off the broad, flat box containing my
American bicycle, several fellow-passengers, prompted by their curiosity
to obtain a peep at the machine which they have learned is to carry me
around the world, gather about; and one sympathetic lady, as she catches
a glimpse of the bright nickeled forks, exclaims, "Oh, what a shame
that they should be allowed to wrench the planks off. They might injure