and his bandits. And, by Buddha! that was worth something
else than six months in prison.

Yes! It was worth 15,000 taels, that is to say, more than 100,000
francs, and in a fit of generosity the Son of Heaven remitted these to
Kinko with the remittal of his sentence.

I decline to depict the joy, the happiness, the intoxication which this
news brought by Kinko in person, gave to all his friends, and
particularly to the fair Zinca Klork. These things are expressible in
no language--not even in Chinese, which lends itself so generously to
the metaphorical.

And now my readers must permit me to finish with my traveling
companions whose numbers have figured in my notebook.

Nos. 1 and 2, Fulk Ephrinell and Miss Horatia Bluett: not being able to
agree regarding the various items stipulated in their matrimonial
contract, they were divorced three days after their arrival in Pekin.
Things were as though the marriage had never been celebrated on the
Grand Transasiatic, and Miss Horatia Bluett remained Miss Horatia
Bluett. May she gather cargoes of heads of hair from Chinese polls; and
may he furnish with artificial teeth every jaw in the Celestial Empire!

No. 3, Major Noltitz: he is busy at the hospital he has come to
establish at Pekin on behalf of the Russian government, and when the
hour for separation strikes, I feel that I shall leave a true friend
behind me in these distant lands.

Nos. 4 and 5, the Caternas: after a stay of three weeks in the capital
of the Celestial Empire, the charming actor and actress set out for
Shanghai, where they are now the great attraction at the French
Residency.

No. 6, Baron Weissschnitzerdoerfer, whose incommensurable name I write
for the last time: well, not only did the globe-trotter miss the
steamer at Tien-Tsin, but a month later he missed it at Yokohama; six
weeks after that he was shipwrecked on the coast of British Columbia,
and then, after being thrown off the line between San Francisco and New
York, he managed to complete his round of the world in a hundred and
eighty-seven days instead of thirty-nine.

Nos. 9 and 10, Pan-Chao and Dr. Tio-King: what can I say except that
Pan-Chao is always the Parisian you know, and that if he comes to
France we shall meet at dinner at Durand's or Marguery's. As to the
doctor, he has got down to eating only the yolk of an egg a day, like
his master, Cornaro, and he hopes to live to a hundred and two as did
the noble Venetian.

No. 8,