"I do not know," she answered. "The servants thought it was a pump and tried to pump water with it, but it would not work. It is probably among the junk in some of the back rooms."
"I wonder if we could not find it and fix it up," my husband persisted.
"I am afraid not," she answered. "The last I saw of it, the servants had taken the glass out of the small end and were using it to look at insects on the bed."
One day when one of my friends came to call I said to her: "It is a long time since I have seen you. Have you been out of the city?"
"Yes, I have been spending some months with my father-in-law, the viceroy of the Canton provinces. His wife has died, and I have returned to Peking to get him a concubine."
"How old is he?" I inquired.
"Seventy-two years," she replied.
"And how will you undertake to secure a concubine for such an old man?"
"I shall probably buy one."
A few weeks afterwards she called again having with her a good-looking young woman of about seventeen, her hair beautifully combed, her face powdered and painted, and clothed in rich silk and satin garments, whom she introduced as the young lady procured for her father-in-law. She explained that she had bought her from a poor country family for three hundred and fifty ounces of silver.