rew till it reached a score, and, under a Portuguese
bandmaster, touched a high level of perfection, playing both on brass
and strings with taste and spirit. The Tientsin branch flourished
equally well and became ultimately the Viceroy's band, and the mother
of bands innumerable all over the metropolitan province of Chihli. But
in reputation it never equalled what was known throughout China as the
"I.G.'s Own."

[Illustration: SIR ROBERT HART'S CHINESE BAND.]

In spring and autumn his musicians gave an open-air concert in the
Inspectorate garden every Wednesday afternoon. Of course, this was the
event of the week so far as society was concerned. Peking residents,
as well as many distinguished strangers who happened to be passing,
came to listen. The scene was invariably animated; ladies walked about
under the lilacs, which in April hung over the paths like soft clouds
of purple fog, displaying their newest toilettes; diplomats discussed
_la situation politique_; missionaries argued points of doctrine;
correspondents exchanged bits of news. All nationalities, classes and
creeds were represented in this cosmopolitan corner of the world, but
the lions and the lambs agreed tacitly to tolerate each other for the
sake of hearing the familiar tunes, warming as good old wine to the
hearts of exiles, and for the sake of seeing the mysterious man whose
advice, given, as it were, under his breath, shaped the course of
events in China.

He guessed well enough what brought the people, and would sometimes
remark laughingly, "They come; I know why they all come. It is just
to get a sight of the two curios of Peking, the I.G. and his queer
musicians."

Occasionally Chinese guests would mingle with the rest, lending with
their silken gowns and silken manners a touch of picturesqueness to
the scene. I can well remember seeing the famous Wu Ting Fang, whose
alert manner made him a general favourite. He prided himself upon
it--and rightly. "How old do you think I am?" he asked his host one
day. "Perhaps forty-five," was the reply. "Forty-five! What a guess!
Sixty-five would have been nearer--and I mean to live to be two
hundred."

He went on to explain carefully how this feat was to be accomplished.
The first thing, naturally, was diet. The man who would cheat time
should live on nuts like the squirrels (do they contrive to do it, I
wonder?). Under no conditions should he touch salt, lest a dangerous
precipitate form upon his bones,