[Illustration:  ENTRANCE TO THE INSPECTORATE OF CUSTOMS BEFORE 1900.]

Sir Robert Hart planned to go into the Legation in August, on the anniversary of his wedding day.  Of course you may be sure he had reported the matter to the Chinese and sent in his resignation in good time.  But, as they gave him no definite answer, there was nothing for it but to remind them that he had agreed to go—­and soon.  Downcast faces listened; a most unconsenting silence answered.

“Well, are you willing?” said he at last.  “Is Her Majesty the Empress-Dowager agreeable to receiving me as British Minister?”

“Oh, yes,” they replied; “she would rather have you than any one else, because, with your great knowledge of China, it will be very pleasant to do business with you.  Besides, you are an old friend of ours.”

“Then is she willing to have me leave the Inspectorate?” continued the I.G., still feeling a subtle sense of their dissatisfaction.  They brightened up at this.  It was evidently the cue they had been looking for.  “That is the point,” said one of the Ministers, plucking up courage.  “Her Majesty would much prefer that you stayed with us.”

The upshot of it all was that he stayed; he felt that in the face of the Yamen’s remarks he could not treat such kind and considerate employers as the Chinese otherwise.  But one of the quaintest touches in the whole affair was that his strongest private reason for holding back, at first, from the splendid appointment as British Minister was that he did not wish to tie himself for five years longer in China—­and yet after all he was to stay twenty-five willingly in the land of his exile.

CHAPTER VIII

AN IMPORTANT MISSION TO HONGKONG AND MACAO—­THE BEGINNING OF A PRIVATE BAND—­DECORATIONS, CHINESE AND FOREIGN—­THE SIKKIM-THIBET CONVENTION—­FORMAL ESTABLISHMENT OF THE POST OFFICE—­WAR LOANS

Robert Hart therefore went quietly on with his work in the Customs (1885), setting personal ambitions calmly aside, and finding—­let us hope—­his reward in the satisfaction which the Chinese and the service generally expressed at his sacrifice of the British Government’s tempting offer.

The very year after it was made, an important piece of business, safely, even brilliantly concluded, added greatly to his reputation.  This was the settlement of questions relating to the simultaneous collection of duty and likin on opium—­two of the burning questions of the day in the south.  China had long desired to levy both taxes at one and the same time, but without an arrangement with the Hongkong and Macao Governments this was impossible, as clever smugglers usually contrived to hurry the drug safely into either British or Portuguese territory before the Chinese authorities could lay their eyes, much less levy their duties, upon it.  Moreover, once it had crossed a frontier, redress was impossible.