The chiefs paled, stiffened, shuddered with fright.  One with more presence of mind than his fellows called for a pen.  “Yes, quick, quick, a pen!”—­the word passed from mouth to mouth.  No more obstinacy, no more hesitation; all of them clamoured to sign, willing, even eager to yield to any demand that a man gifted with the supernatural power of taking out his eye and replacing it at pleasure, might make.

On his return from Formosa the I.G. wrote a famous paper called “Pang Kwan Lun” ("What a Bystander Says"), full of useful criticisms and suggestions on Chinese affairs.  Some were followed, others were not, but he had the satisfaction of hearing from the lips of the Empress-Dowager herself—­when she received him in audience in 1902—­that she regretted more of his advice had not been taken, subsequent events having proved how sound and useful it all was.

In 1866, having worked twelve years in China—­seven of those years for the Chinese Government—­Robert Hart felt a very natural desire to see his own country and his own people again.  He therefore applied for leave, and was granted six months—­none too long a rest after the strenuous work he had done.

Just before starting he said to the Chinese, “You will soon be establishing Legations abroad.  Do you not think that my going will be an excellent opportunity for you to send some of your people to see a little of the world?” Yes, they agreed it would be; but—­though they never told him so—­I think the older conservative generation had grave doubts whether the adventurous ones would return alive.  Europe was then a terra incognita.  There might easily be pirates in the Seine and cannibals in Bond Street, not to mention the hundred mysterious dangers of the great waters and the fire-breathing monsters that traversed them.

Well, in the end, the prejudices melted and the party started, chaperoned by the I.G.  Five in all there were, a certain Pin Lao Yeh, an ex-Prefect, his son and three students from the Tung Wen Kwan or College of Languages.  Old Pin Lao Yeh, being the senior, wrote a book about his experiences, describing all he saw for the benefit of his timid homekeeping countrymen, and giving careful measurements of everything measurable—­the masts of the steamers, the length of the wharves, the height of the Arc de Triomphe, as if in some mysterious way statistics could prove a prop to the faint-hearted.  Of the four lads in the “experiment,” two afterwards filled high diplomatic posts.  A certain Fang I was made Charge d’Affaires in London and later Consul-General in Singapore, while Chang Teh Ming was made Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James.

The voyage home was uneventful, the little party’s first adventure coming at their last port.  Here the Customs had to be passed.  With some pride, I should like to write, only I am sure it was with his usual modesty—­the kind of modesty that made strangers say, the first time they saw him, “Is that all he is?” and after they had spoken with him for ten minutes, “Can he be all that?”—­the I.G. presented his letter from the French Legation at Peking to the Chief Custom House Official Profound bows immediately from this worthy, then grand gestures and the magic words, “Passe en ambassade!”