ucked up you would be very angry with him, It would be like a
housemaid coming in with her sleeves and skirt tucked up for
house-cleaning--_most_ disrespectful!"

"Were these the men you showed something to that _they_ thought
wonderful?"

"Yes, Fred. And now I'll tell you what it was. You must know that I
could speak no Chinese, and my new friends could speak no English, so
they chattered like magpies to each other, and laughed like children or
Chinamen--for the Chinese are very fond of a joke. When they laughed I
laughed, and we bowed and shook hands, and they turned me round and felt
me all over, and _felt my hands_."

"What about your hands, Cousin?"

"I had on dog-skin gloves, yellow ones. Now when all the male population
of the hamlet had stroked these very carefully, I perceived that they
had never seen gloves before, and that they believed themselves to be
testing the feel of a barbarian's skin."

"Barbarian?"

"Certainly, Bessie. They give us the same polite name that we feel
ourselves more justified in applying to them. Well, when they had
laughed, and I had laughed, and we had shaken hands afresh, laughing
heartily as we did so, and I began to feel it was time to go on and
catch up my boat, which was floating sluggishly down the winding stream
of the Peiho, I resolved on one final effect, like the last scene of a
dramatic performance. Making vigorous signs and noises, to intimate that
something was coming, and they must look out sharp, and feeling very
much like a conjurer who has requested his audience to keep their eyes
on him and 'see how it's done'--I slyly unbuttoned my gloves, and then
with much parade began to draw one off by the finger-tips.

"'Eyah! Eyah!' cried the Chinamen on all the notes of the gamut, as they
fell back over each other. _They thought I was skinning my hands_. I
'smiled superior,' as I took the gloves off, and made an effect almost
as great by putting them on again."

"Oh, Cousin Peregrine, weren't they astonished?"

"They were, Maggie, And unless they are more familiar with Europeans
now, the mystery is probably to this day as unsolved to them as the
trick of the ball of thread and the twelve needles still is to me. By
this time, however, my boat was

'Far off, a blot upon the stream,'

and I had to hasten away as fast as I could to catch it up. I parted on
the most friendly terms from my narrow-eyed acquaintance, but when I had
nearly regained my boat I could still