operly waxed and arranges for the piano, as the music is
provided by leading amateurs, there being no band.

After endless discussion and elaborate preparation the important night
arrives, when the guests assemble, frequently with strained feelings
but with a fixed determination to enjoy the passing hour.

Men are largely in the majority, so that ladies of all ages, ranging
say from fourteen to forty, are requested as a favour to dance, and
are assured beforehand of a full programme.

Those men who cannot get partners, or do not care to dance, spend the
evening between cards and occasional visits to the ballroom to watch.

The supper is always very good and not hurried through with that undue
haste so noticeable at home. The assembly, being considerably leavened
with people who are, to say the least, well out of their teens, makes
itself comfortable for an hour or more, doing ample justice to the
delicacies provided; indeed, after the ladies have all departed,
bachelors and wayward husbands usually return to the attack once, and
even twice, so that it is not uncommon to hear an incoherent "For he's
a jolly good fellow" from a belated band of revellers returning home
shortly before daylight.

At Peking, Hongkong and Shanghai dances and balls are very frequent
and carried out on a scale comparable with that of similar festivities
at home.

The club is always a popular institution, where the male element of
the community, frequently representing many nationalities, gathers for
a game of billiards and a chat, and where the home and local papers,
together with a fair number of books and magazines, are to be found.
One evening during the tea season, just before dinner, I counted at
one time fourteen nationalities in the bar of the Hankow Club.

I like those friendly gatherings at the round table, when sport and
other topics of our limited world are discussed, and when one
generally manages to give or to receive an invitation to pot-luck,
with a rubber or a gentle poker flutter to follow.

There, too, is sometimes an American bowling alley, where on cold
nights, or hot, for the matter of that, we roll huge wooden balls down
a raised track for twenty yards, to scatter nine pins at the bottom.
There are two parallel tracks and we make up two bowling parties of
three or four aside, the losers to pay for the game and provide
refreshments all round.

China is so enormous in extent that it embraces almost every variety
of