nd 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.

I waited patiently to see how they proposed to solve this problem--did
they wish a bold, open, frontal attack or an underground plot? Nothing
is very astonishing now, and we have all the resourcefulness of
_condottieri_, with a certain modern respectability added. But they
were sensible people, and did not dream of the impossible. They
supposed, they said, that I knew that the Russians had now full
control of the Board of Revenue. Perhaps, if their commander could be
approached in the proper way, the matter could be very rapidly
attended to. The treasure could be seized in the name of the Russian
Government and everyone could get a share. That is what they said.

At first I thought of refusing point-blank, for I was rather tired of
these adventures; but the men were so persistent, and I had been so
irritated by the pious insincerity of my own chief, that in the end I
told them that I would see what could be done, although the matter did
not interest me very much. I privately again thought of what our old
_doyen_ says, "_Ce n'est pas pour rien qu'on connait les Russes_," and
wondered how long negotiations would last.

Of course it was a wretchedly long business, and before long I
regretted bitterly that I had not been more hard-hearted. I managed to
communicate with L---- that same day through R----, and explained to
him as well