excuse for not shouldering a rifle and volunteering for the front is
written on his tired face. It is the selfsame Yankee missionary who is
grinding the wheat and seeing that it is not stolen; it is the
American missionary who is surveying the butcher at work and seeing
that not even the hoofs are wasted. And I am sad to confess that it is
he who is feeding those thousands of Roman Catholics in the Su
wang-fu, while the French and Italian priests and fathers, divorced
from the dull routine of their ordinary life, sit helplessly with
their hands folded, willingly abandoning their charges to these more
energetic Anglo-Saxons. This Protestantism is not my religion, but for
masculine energy there is none other like it. I would not have you
think by this and my constant irritation that there are no Englishmen
doing well; it is merely that the ponderous atmosphere of the British
Legation is such that very few men who live habitually there can shake
themselves free from it even in such times as these. I know that half
of them are much upset at the _role_ they are being forced to play,
but who can help them?

We are progressing more quietly now that the big fires are out; but
still there is scant reason for any congratulations. S----, for
instance, is quite forgotten, I assure you, for I mentioned his name
to P----, the French Minister, only an hour ago, and the only reply he
made was to spread out his hands in front of him and give vent to an
immense sigh. Then he muttered as he went away, "_II a disparu
completement--entierement; c'est la fin_."...

All relief is now felt to be out of the question. Men are also beginning to
fall with regularity, and are carried in bloodstained, as evidence that
this is really a serious business. The British Chancery is now the
hospital; despatch tables have been washed and covered with surgical cloth;