The Chinese lifted his glass. “And next to my own country and my own countrymen, I like and admire and trust yours, sir,” he said, and drank.
“When the Manchu fell,” Snow began when he, too, had tasted his port,—“frankly I wish they had not——”
Sên King-lo smiled. “We all regret—some more, some less—that they had to, all of us who love self less and China more, I think. But it had to come.”
“Possibly,” the other conceded. “I don’t own that I see it. But we need not quarrel over that.”
“We shall not quarrel over anything,” Sên said simply.
“No, I don’t think we shall. Well—I hope that the Manchu may come back.”
“Why?” Sên King-lo asked.
“Best dynasty you ever had. And I don’t like republics. Don’t believe in them. And for an Oriental people—well, in my opinion they smell to heaven.”
Sên King-lo laughed. “Do you think the Manchu was a good dynasty in its last reigns?” he questioned.
“I do,” Snow said stoutly. “It gave you the two finest rulers any country ever had—any country, bar none.”