"Oh," replied the fellow, pained and grieved at his master's want of understanding, "I couldn't do that. If I did I should lose 'face'"—that is, prestige and standing in the community. On such a slender thread hangs self-respect in the Far East.
The old butler, a Cantonese with the manner of a courtier, was even more privileged than the rest—and for the best of reasons. He had been with his master for almost half a century. His memory was wonderful, and sometimes on winter nights when he had helped to serve the I.G.'s solitary and frugal dinner, he would presume on his position, linger behind the other servants, and call up again to the I.G.'s mind the night in 1863—just such a bitter night as this, with just such a howling wind—when together they had gone to meet Gordon, and the sampan taking them ashore had capsized, throwing them both into the icy water.
Occasionally then the I.G. would retaliate with reminiscences of Ah Fong making the Grand Tour of Europe with him in 1878—how he kissed his hands to the winning French chambermaids, and called out "Allewalla, Allewalla!" ("Au revoir, au revoir!"), or how he had answered the horrified ladies of Ireland who inquired about his duties,—"Morning time my brush master's clothes, night time my bring he brandy and water."
[Illustration: FRONT DOOR OF SIR ROBERT HART'S HOUSE, PEKING]
In this age of uninterested or inanimate "helps," a servitor like Ah Fong is about as rare as an archaeopteryx. Devotion and loyalty such as his are fast dying out of the world, but they make a pretty picture when one does find them, and I like to tell how the old servant grieved at the thought of separation from one who represented his whole horizon.
The I.G., too, must have felt some sentiment at leaving the faces to which he was accustomed, the house which had grown dear in almost thirty years of uninterrupted solitude. It is just these associations which are most intangible, which sound most trivial set down in black and white, that often take the strongest hold upon us. Habit, the little old dame, creeps in one day, sits by our fire, amuses us, comforts us, occupies us, and—before we know it—we feel a wrench if we are obliged to move away.
Nevertheless we must all move some time or another. Everybody does—even the I.G., whose going had been so often prophesied and again so often contradicted that he had come to be regarded as the one fixed star twinkling unselfishly in the heaven of duty.
The morning of his going, I remember, broke fine and clear. The sky was beautifully blue, like an inverted turquoise bowl. The little railway station must have been startled half out of its wits by all the people flocking in. Such a thing in all its history had never happened before. Under the low grey roof trooped guards of honour sent by every nationality—all for the sake of one man who was only a civilian, and nothing but a private individual. There were this man's own nationals in the central position—a company of splendid Highlanders with pipers, and stretching away down the platform there were American marines, Italian sailors, Dutch marines and Japanese soldiers. And, of course, there were Chinese, no less than three detachments of them, looking very well in their new khaki uniforms. Two of the detachments had brought their bands, and the I.G.'s own band had come of its own accord to play "Auld Lang Syne."
[Illustration: FRONT VIEW OF SIR ROBERT HART'S HOUSE.
With his butler, Ah Fong, who served him for almost half a century.]