The I.G. had the matter in hand; but unfortunately, just as he was about to complete it, French and Russian banks offered to lend the sum at a cheaper rate of interest, and so it was given to them. They also agreed to float a second loan for £16,000,000. But at the last moment, either because of some hitch in the minor arrangements, or because the Chinese suddenly thought it might be unwise to put all their eggs in one basket, they turned again to Robert Hart.
Late one night a Yamên messenger came clattering down the silent streets, the sound of his pony's hoof-beats echoing from the compound walls and arousing the whole quarter, there was a prodigious thumping on the big outer gate before a sleeping watchman could be made to roll out of his wadded quilts; but finally, after prolonged consultation, the despatch was taken in to the I.G., the messenger calmed with tea and a pourboire, and quiet once more restored. Next morning, early, the I.G.'s cart was at the door—a vehicle, by the way, interesting in itself, since it was chosen by Hung Ki, the man who liberated Sir Harry Parkes—and Robert Hart started for the only shop in Peking, ostensibly to buy toys for his children friends, as it was near Christmas.
[Illustration: SIR ROBERT HART'S PRIVATE CART.
The wheels have knobs on them to strengthen them, there are no springs. The carter always walks.]
In those days the Legations watched his movements very closely; he wished them to hear that his little expedition was purely a pleasurable one. No doubt they did, for not a soul knew that, when he casually strolled into a bank near by, it was to quietly produce a paper from his pocket and say, as one might say "Good day,"—"I have here a loan agreement for £16,000,000, but I can only give it to you on condition that you sign immediately."
Half an hour later the necessary signatures were on the document—the whole great matter put through. Looking back upon the success, one marvels at how he contrived it so rapidly that, once the news was out, people caught their breath with astonishment. Instinctively he must have felt it was a psychological moment when a man is required to take responsibility—to presume even on his power, and that in a moment's hesitation all might have been lost.
In 1896 came the formal establishment of the Imperial Chinese Post Office—in itself the work of many a man's lifetime. Money had to be found for the experiment from the Customs funds first, then innumerable rules and regulations framed and experiments tried before it became a practical working institution. The I.G.'s wonderful grasp of detail stood him in good stead then, for a hundred details came daily under his notice, and he was consulted on every possible subject—from a design on a postage stamp to the opening of a new department. To him, indeed, belongs the entire credit for the designing and building of the greatest success of recent years in China—a postal service, grown beyond the most sanguine hopes, which not only pays its own way but is beginning to turn over some revenue—indirectly, of course—to the Imperial Treasury.
[Illustration: THE IMPERIAL CHINESE POST OFFICE ENTRANCE ON A RAINY
DAY IN THE 'NINETIES]
Meanwhile the "five years longer" that he had privately set as the term of his life in China when he refused to become British Minister at Peking (1885) were long since passed, and five other years had followed them, yet he had never found it possible to return to his own country. Each spring he debated whether he might safely leave his unfinished plans, which, ranging as they did over a vast number of subjects, could not well be given half completed into other hands, and each spring some new problem claimed his attention. In 1896, however, he faced a harder decision than usual. The road was perhaps unusually open—and yet he knew that, half hidden, there were obstacles waiting to be met.
At this crisis of indecision he decided to do what he had so often done before—consult the Bible. This had been a habit of his father's before him; in fact, his whole family had asked guidance on every venture they undertook, no matter how humble it might be, and the training of his childhood was not outgrown. He accordingly took the Bible lying on his desk and opened it at random one evening. There, truly enough, was an answer clear and unmistakable in the very first verse his eye lighted upon—Acts xxvii. 31: "Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved." It immediately decided him to remain in China, and he suffered no more from perplexity or indecision.