Unluckily business too often stood in the way of pleasure, for the 'sixties were very busy years. China was just beginning to realize that she could no longer remain in peaceful self-sufficiency; intercourse with foreign nations she must have, willing or no; that meant drastic changes—changes in which the I.G.'s advice would be valuable. Thus circumstances helped him into a unique position, one without parallel in any other country; he was continually consulted on hundreds of matters not properly connected with Customs administration at all, and he was in fact, if not in name, far more than an Inspector-General.
[Illustration: A PICNIC IN OLD PEKING—TOWARDS YUEN MING YUEN.]
Much of this advisory work, too, was of the most delicate nature: some involved intricate dealings with several Powers having conflicting interests. The slightest false move would often have been sufficient to snap the frail thread of negotiation. It is not to be wondered at if he made some mistakes—he would have been scarcely human otherwise—but as a rule his tact and energy carried to a successful issue whatever he began.
"What is your secret power of settling a difficult matter?" a friend once asked him. "Whenever I deal with other people, and especially with Chinese," was the answer, "I always ask myself two questions: what idea that I do not want them to have will my remark suggest to them, and what answer will my remark allow them to make to me?"
The habit of deliberating before he made a statement grew upon him, as habits will, exaggerated with time, and provided an excuse for at least one bon mot. A certain French Professor whom he had brought out with him for the Tung Wen Kwan once went to interview his chief.
"Well," said his colleagues on his return. "What did the I.G. say about such and such a thing?" The Frenchman shook his head ruefully: "He rolled the answer back and forth seven times, and then he did not make it." Probably the I.G. had learned by experience that a person can seldom pick up a hasty speech just where he dropped it.
Another time a very charming lady went up to him at a soirée with a rose in her hand. "May I offer you my boutonnière?" said she, smiling. The mere fact of a question having been asked him suddenly put him instinctively upon his guard; an uncommunicative look spread over his face, and to her horror and his own subsequent amusement, he answered, "I should prefer to consider the matter before answering."
In 1868 came the affair of the Burlingame Mission, with which—as with all the other events of the time in China—Robert Hart had much to do. Mr. Burlingame was then United States Minister in Peking, a personal friend of the I.G.'s and a most charming man with a genius for hospitality. Nothing pleased him more than to see half a dozen nationalities seated at his table. At one of these little dinners Burlingame noticed that a certain discussion was growing too serious and heated. Some of his guests were on the point of losing their tempers, for Envoys Extraordinary dislike being disagreed with, even by Ministers Plenipotentiary. He therefore picked up his glass of sherry in the most courtly manner in the world, held it to the light, studied it critically from every point of view, turning it now this way, now that.
"Look," said he suddenly, addressing the table in his most charming manner, "did you ever see sherry exactly like that before? Do you notice its peculiar colour? See how it shines—yellow in one light, reddish brown in another."
When he had drawn the interest, he went on to give the most delightful little lecture on sherries, their similarities, their differences, and their making, till the whole table listened with rapt attention and, listening, forgot their perilous discussion and the heat and irritation they had spent upon it.