There being so little for the rank and file to do or talk about at the present moment, there is endless gossip and scandal going on.  The subject of eggs is one of the most burning ones!  Great numbers of eggs are being obtained by the payment of heavy sums to some of the more friendly soldiery around us, who steal in with baskets and sacks, and receive in return rolls of dollars, and these eggs are being distributed by a committee.  Some people are getting more than others.  Everybody professes tremendous rage because a certain lady with blue-black hair is supposed to have used a whole dozen in the washing of her hair!  She is one of those who have not been seen or heard of since the rifles began to speak.  There are lots of that sort, all well nourished and timorous, while dozens of poor missionary women are suffering great hardships.  Several people who had relations in Paris thirty years ago tell me it was the same thing then, and that it will always be the same thing.  This story of the eggs, however, has had one immediate result.  People are hiding away more provisions and marking them off on their lists as eaten.  What is the use of depriving one’s self for the common good later on under such circumstances?  What, indeed!

There is another sign which is not pleasing any one.  An official diary is being now written up under orders of the headquarters.  It will be full of our Peking diplomatic half-truths.  But, worst of all, our only correspondent, M——­, who was shot the other day and is getting convalescent, has been taken under the wing of our commander-in-chief, and his lips will be sealed by the time we get out—­if ever we get out.  With an official history and a discreet independent version, no one will ever understand what bungling there has been, and what culpability.  It is our chicken-hearted chiefs, and they alone, who should be discredited.  With a few exceptions, they are more afraid than the women, and never venture beyond the British Legation.  Everything is left to the younger men, whose economic value is smaller!  I hope I may live to see the official accounts....

XXII

THE WORLD BEYOND OUR BRICKS

2nd August, 1900.

* * * * *

A new month has dawned, and with it have come shoals of letters bringing us exact tidings from the outer world.  Yesterday one messenger slipped in bearing three letters.  To-day another has arrived with six missives—­making nine letters in all for those who have had nothing at all except a couple of cipher messages for two entire months.  Those nine letters meant as much to us as a winter’s mail by the overland route in the old days....

For as each one confirms and adds to the news of the others, we can now form a complete and well-connected story of almost everything that has taken place.  We even begin to understand why S——­ and his two thousand sailors never reached us.  There have been so many things doing.