Good gracious! A threat to call in the Japanese! Don't you love it!
XIII
THE LAO-HSI-KAI "INCIDENT"
It's about over, I should say. The French are going to keep their ill-gotten gains, and the Chinese are giving up all hope of getting Lao Hsi Kai back again. The thing has drifted from an "Outrage" into an "Affair" and now it's only an "Incident," which means it's over. The boycott continues, but it is dwindling in intensity and will soon subside. It is now but a question of time before China settles down to an acceptance of the situation, bows before the might and majesty of Western civilization, and prepares herself for the next outcropping of kindred ideals.
You ask, why didn't the Chinese fight? "What with, stupid Gretchen?" How can a virtually bankrupt nation like China take up arms, which she doesn't possess, against the mighty nations of Europe? Defenseless, unarmed China is no match for the "civilization" of the West!
A few nights ago I got a French point of view of the affair, and will give it to you just as I heard it, without comment. One of the attachés of the French legation was dining with us. This Lao Hsi Kai business, which has been uppermost in every one's thoughts for the last four weeks, was naturally in our minds as we sat down at dinner. Not to mention it would have savored of constraint; yet it was equally embarrassing to speak of it. After ten or fifteen minutes, during which the subject was carefully avoided, I took the bull by the horns.
"Seems to me you've stirred up a great mess out here," I began.
"Mess?" replied the young Frenchman. "Oh, you mean that affair of the other day! Ah, these Chinese! Perfectly impossible people!"
He crumbled his bread a while, and then continued with much heat.