indeed, are going on everywhere, and the few people who have managed to get through from other places in China with loads of silver dollars are making fortunes.  There are enormous masses of silver sycee in nearly everybody’s hands, and I am certain now that several of our chefs de mission are in clover.  My own chief, who pretends to be virtuous because he is something of a faineant, to put it mildly, eyed me very severely the other day and said that everyone reported that I had developed into a species of latter-day robber-chief, and had slain hundreds of people.  He said all sorts of other things, too.  I let him exhaust his oratory before I replied.  Then I inquired regarding the definition of the term treasure-trove, which has become the consecrated phrase for all our many hypocrites.  The generals and many of his colleagues had much treasure-trove, I said; I had some, too.  Of course, I admitted that if there were investigations, and everyone had to render a strict account, I would do the same; but for the time being I wanted to know that there was going to be only one law for everyone.  Those were good replies, for some of the biggest people in the Legations are so mean and so bent on covering up their tracks that they are using their wives to do their dirty work.

I believe my chief thought for a moment that I knew something about an affair in which he was involved, for he only said one word, “Bien," and looked at me in a strange way.  I knew I had frightened him, and that he must have thought that if I chose to speak later on there would be trouble.  I had no such intention, of course, only I hated being annoyed by a man of little courage.  Had he been courageous I should never have answered at all, except perhaps to offer him a share of my private treasure-trove!

Yet with all this settling down it seems to me that people must be becoming suddenly more and more commercial, and that an inspection of their accounts makes them wish for a little more on the profit side.  For one morning a young Englishman, who has been living in Peking rather mysteriously for a number of years, marched in on me at a very early hour, accompanied by several Chinese, whom I immediately knew from their appearance to be small officials.  The Englishman said that he had a plan and a proposition, and these he unfolded so rapidly that he made me laugh.  It appeared that the men he had brought with him were ku-ping, or Treasury Guards of the Board of Revenue under the old regime; and, according to their accounts, they knew exactly where the secret stores of treasure were hidden in the secret vaults of the government.  They explained that these stores belonged not only to the government, but were also portions of what peculating officials took from day to day and hid away until they could remove their plunder in safety after an inspection had been made.  They said, did these informants, that there were millions in both gold and silver.  They became very enthusiastic and excited as they talked.