"I see it all," remarked Miss Dibsley; "Euphemius, take my cup; and I think I'll try the bread and butter."
"Well, the opium we could not get, though the applications that Lord Palmerston made were unknown; however we could punish Mehemet Ali for his part in the transaction, and you know as well as I how matters ended in Syria. I must tell you that his Celestial Majesty never once interposed to protect the Pacha, but left him to his fate—this I know to be the case. Well, our quarrel with China still remained open—"
"Cream, Euphemius," said Miss Dibsley.
"We refused to take tea——"
"There's a good lad: a little bit more sugar."
"We refused to take their tea without the supply of opium;—the Emperor grew more and more incensed—told all manner of falsehoods, and asserted that our merchants had been administering opium to the Chinese, (where should they get it, I should like to know!) with the view of producing sleep and plundering the tea-factories. He then, it is said—though I don't understand this part of the story—flung his chops in the faces of the British, and at length provoked our sailors to make an attack on everything in the shape of junk that they could find. And so to war we went—all, as you perceive, through the people of the Boundary-line, and the meddling of Mehemet Ali."
"I never clearly understood the matter before," observed Miss Dibsley, stirring her fourth cup: "but what has the Emperor been doing lately?"
"Lately, why haven't you heard? My dear, to prevent the British from being supplied, he has been ordering all his people to destroy their stocks of teas—hyson, souchong, bohea, congou—all they have, and promising to indemnify them every sixpence."
"Well to be sure!" exclaimed Miss Dibsley; (a little more gunpowder in the pot would improve the next cup, my dear madam;) "only think! But isn't this a good deal like cutting his own nose off?"