Nanking. Fortunately, he announced his route before asking about mine. I decided on the spot to go around by the Korean and Chinese Imperial Railways, through Fusan, Mukden, and Shanhaikwan.
However, he perhaps did me a service by telling me of a pleasant little French hotel at Peking, on the Italian glacis, whatever that is. The big hotel in the Legation Quarter, he says, is rather expensive and at this time of year will be swarming with tourists. The little Hôtel de Chine, on the other hand, is frequented only by queer types of the Coast, and is really very cheap.
“The cuisine,” said Sir Robert, “is atrocious. But, being French, they serve excellent coffee, which does for breakfast and one can, in a pinch, put together a fair luncheon there. For dinner, the Wagon-lits, of course. Above all, make no experiments with the cellar of the Hôtel de Chine. They will show you an imposing wine-card. Shun it!”
I merely bowed at this. It was no use telling Sir Robert that I should certainly not know one alleged vintage from another.
There is one difficulty. Sir Robert himself, affecting a taste for the quaint, will be stopping at our less pretentious hostelry; again, with my eyes closed at night, I shall see that bad old face with the one drooping eyelid; again that loose voice will sound in my ears. But then, I shall be very busy.
Some one is knocking at my door. Crocker is calling.
Midnight—Still the 30th.
CROCKER was in the worst shape I have seen him in so far. His eyes were red. And when he dropped on my couch, the first thing he did was to stretch out his right hand and watch it critically. It was decidedly unsteady.
C
“Ring up a boy, old chap, will you?” he said. I did so. He ordered a quart bottle of whisky and a half-dozen bottles of Tan San.
“Steady my nerves,” he observed, half to himself. “It's that dam' saké. Gets to me like absinthe.” He chuckled. “I must have a quart of the stuff
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