telegram, however much it
might cost. This time there is no risk of my bringing a lecture down on
myself. There is no mistake possible, as in the case of that pretended
mandarin, Yen-Lou, which I shall never forget--but then, it was in the
country of the false Smerdis and that must be my excuse.

It is agreed that as soon as we arrive at Sou-Tcheou, the telegraph
being repaired at the same time as the line, I will send off a
despatch, which will reveal to the admiration of Europe the brilliant
name of Faruskiar.

We are seated at the table. Ephrinell has done the thing as well as
circumstances permit. In view of the feast, provisions were taken in at
Tcharkalyk. It is not Russian cookery, but Chinese, and by a Chinese
chef to which we do honor. Luckily we are not condemned to eat it with
chopsticks, for forks are not prohibited at the Grand Transasiatic
table.

I am placed to the left of Mrs. Ephrinell, Major Noltitz to the right
of her husband. The other guests are seated as they please. The German
baron, who is not the man to refuse a good dinner, is one of the
guests. Sir Francis Trevellyan did not even make a sign in answer to
the invitation that was tendered him.

To begin with, we had chicken soup and plovers' eggs, then swallows'
nests cut in threads, stewed spawn of crab, sparrow gizzards, roast
pig's feet and sauce, mutton marrow, fried sea slug, shark's fin--very
gelatinous; finally bamboo shoots in syrup, and water lily roots in
sugar, all the most out-of-the-way dishes, watered by Chao Hing wine,
served warm in metal tea urns.

The feast is very jolly and--what shall I say?--very confidential,
except that the husband takes no notice of the wife, and reciprocally.

What an indefatigable humorist is our actor? What a continuous stream
of wheezes, unintelligible for the most part, of antediluvian puns, of
pure nonsense at which he laughs so heartily that it is difficult not
to laugh with him. He wanted to learn a few words of Chinese, and
Pan-Chao having told him that "tching-tching" means thanks, he has been
tching-tchinging at every opportunity, with burlesque intonation.

Then we have French songs, Russian songs, Chinese songs--among others
the "Shiang-Touo-Tching," the _Chanson de la Reverie_, in which our
young Celestial repeats that the flowers of the peach tree are of
finest fragrance at the third moon, and those of the red pomegranate at
the fifth.

The dinner lasts till ten o'clock. At this