voracious appetite, "Shall we get down and knock our heads on the
floor, and beg you not to eat too much, and make yourself sick,
like the eunuchs do to the Emperor?" There is nothing to wonder
at that Kuang Hsu, without parental restraint, and fawned upon by
cringing eunuchs and serving maids, should have been a spoiled
child; the wonder is that he was not worse than he was.

One day in 1901 while the court was absent at Hsian, and the
front gate of the Forbidden City was guarded by our "boys in
blue," I obtained a pass and visited the imperial palace. The
apartments of the Emperor consisted of a series of one-story
Chinese buildings, with paper windows around a large central pane
of glass, tile roof and brick floor. The east part of the
building appeared to be the living-room, about twenty by
twenty-five feet. The window on the south side extended the
entire length of the room, and was filled with clocks from end to
end. There were clocks of every description from the finest
French cloisonne to the most intricate cuckoo clocks from which a
bird hopped forth to announce the hour, and each ticking its own
time regardless of every other. Tables were placed in various
parts of the room, on each of which were one, two or three
clocks. Swiss watches of the most curious and unique designs hung
about the walls. Two sofas sat back to back in the centre of the
room, and a beautiful little gilt desk on which was the most
wonderful of all his clocks, with several large foreign chairs
upholstered in plush and velvet, completed the furniture. I sat
down in one of these chairs to rest, for it was a hot summer day,
and immediately there proceeded from beneath me sweet strains of
music from a box concealed beneath the cushion. It was not only a
surprise, it was soothing and restful; and I was prepared to see