That is the only remembrance I retain of the Rome of Turkestan.  Besides, as I was not able to stay a month there, it was as well to stay there only a few hours.

At half-past ten, accompanied by Major Noltitz, whom I found at the terminus of the Decauville, I alighted at the railway station, the warehouses of which are crowded with bales of Bokhariot cotton, and packs of Mervian wool.

I see at a glance that all my numbers are on the platform, including my German baron.  In the rear of the train the Persians are keeping faithful guard round the mandarin Yen Lou.  It seems that three of our traveling companions are observing them with persistent curiosity; these are the suspicious-looking Mongols we picked up at Douchak.  As I pass near them I fancy that Faruskiar makes a signal to them, which I do not understand.  Does he know them?  Anyhow, this circumstance rather puzzles me.

The train is no sooner off than the passengers go to the dining car.  The places next to mine and the major’s, which had been occupied since the start, are now vacant, and the young Chinaman, followed by Dr. Tio-King, take advantage of it to come near us.  Pan Chao knows I am on the staff of the Twentieth Century, and he is apparently as desirous of talking to me as I am of talking to him.

I am not mistaken.  He is a true Parisian of the boulevard, in the clothes of a Celestial.  He has spent three years in the world where people amuse themselves, and also in the world where they learn.  The only son of a rich merchant in Pekin, he has traveled under the wing of this Tio-King, a doctor of some sort, who is really the most stupid of baboons, and of whom his pupil makes a good deal of fun.

Dr. Tio-King, since he discovered Cornaro’s little book on the quays of the Seine, has been seeking to make his existence conform to the “art of living long in perfect health.”  This credulous Chinaman of the Chinese had become thoroughly absorbed in the study of the precepts so magisterially laid down by the noble Venetian.  And Pan Chao is always chaffing him thereupon, though the good man takes no notice.

We were not long before we had a few specimens of his monomania, for the doctor, like his pupil, spoke very good French.

“Before we begin,” said Pan Chao, “tell me, doctor, how many fundamental rules there are for finding the correct amounts of food and drink?”

“Seven, my young friend,” replied Tio-King with the greatest seriousness.  “The first is to take only just so much nourishment as to enable you to perform the purely spiritual functions.”

“And the second?”

“The second is to take only such an amount of nourishment as will not cause you to feel any dullness, or heaviness, or bodily lassitude.  The third—­”

“Ah!  We will wait there, to-day, if you don’t mind, doctor,” replied Pan Chao.  “Here is a certain maintuy, which seems rather good, and—­”