"Glad you like the flavour; I've just changed my tea-dealer, and—"
"And new brooms sweep clean, as the saying is," tittered Miss Dibsley; "a trifle more cream,—thank you."
"Brooms!" ejaculated Mrs. Hipson gravely; "um! I hope you don't mean—by your mention of brooms—I assure you I ordered the very best seven shilling—"
"Oh dear, quite the reverse," returned Miss Dibsley, helping herself to another tea-cake.
"With some very superior green," proceeded Mrs. Hipson, "at eight-and-six, which I do think quite a catch; but really it's extremely difficult to find good teas now-a-days, for since this curious business with China—"
"Oh! pray do tell me something about that," said Miss Dibsley; "for I never yet found anybody who knew, and never had patience to listen if they did. What has this Emperor of Delf been doing? The cream—thank you."
"Why, my dear, I've luckily had it all explained to me by a gentleman deeply concerned in the Potteries, who consequently understands everything connected with China—it's his business—and he informs me on the best authority that the disturbance originally broke out thus:—You see there happens to be a place in America called the Boundary-line, the natives of which employed a gentleman named McLeod to seize upon one of our East India ships and destroy its cargo of tea—these Boundary-line people being jealous, as I'm told, of the spread of temperance in this country. Whereupon our merchants in India naturally became incensed; and they applied, it seems, to the Emperor of China for a considerable quantity of opium—of opium, don't you see?—with the view of selling it to America at a very reduced price, so that the Boundary-line people might be tempted to buy the injurious drug, and thus become the instruments of their own punishment."
"Now I begin to understand," said Miss Dibsley. "Euphemius Hipson, my dear, you can assist me to another lump of sugar?"
"Oh! yes Miss Dibsley," said the young gentleman, jumping up nervously and spilling his tea over his new pepper-and-salt habiliments; "and if you'd like a bit more of this cake, here's such a nice—"
"Euphemius, my darling," cried Mrs. Hipson, "Silence! Would you like to take some more cake, Miss Dibsley? Euphemius, go and sit down. Well, my dear, as I was saying, the Emperor of China, secretly instigated by his political crony, old Mehemet Ali—a very clever man, I need not tell you—positively refused to supply any opium to our merchants; and he seems to have acted with great obstinacy, for the French king and the Sultan together vainly endeavoured to counteract the policy of the Pacha, who had succeeded in persuading the Emperor that we wanted all this opium for home-consumption—in fact (only think!) that the British were going to destroy themselves with opium, and that thus he should lose his best customers for tea."