I had plenty of time to see everything, for the train was not due till eleven, and when it grew too hot to stay in the open any longer, I went on to the platform and sat in the shade, and formed a sort of side show to the fair, for so many people crowded round to look at the foreign woman, and they had more than what a servant of one of my friends called “a littee stink,” that at last the station policeman, who was really a soldier guarding the line, came and cleared them away drastically with drawn sword, and I explained, as best I could, that on this great occasion, I hadn't the least objection to being a show, for very likely many of these people had come from beyond the beaten tracks, from places where foreigners were scarce, but I must have sufficient air.
Tuan got the tickets, and then I suppose, seeing his time was short, for we should be in Peking by seven, and should certainly part, he relieved his mind and asked a question that had evidently been burning there ever since we had left the mission station.
“Missie have pay mission boys cumshaw?”
Now the cumshaw had been a difficulty.
My hostess had come to me and said: “I know you are going to give a cumshaw. I may as well tell you that if our visitors don't we always do ourselves, because the servants expect it, but I am come to beg of you not to give too much and to give it through us. In fact the cook went for his holiday last night and we gave him eighty cents and said it was from you.”
“Eighty cents!” I was afraid those servants would think me very mean. But my hostess was very fluent on the subject, and very determined. The majority of their visitors could not possibly afford to give much, and they were very anxious not to establish a precedent. What was I to do? I might have supplemented it through Tuan, but I felt it would be making a poor return to the people who had been so kind to me, so I was obliged to let it go at that.
“I pay Missie, she give cumshaw for me,” said I to Tuan.
“Ah!” said that worthy, as if he had settled a doubt satisfactorily in his own mind, “boy say Missie pay eighty cent, I say, not my Missie, she give five, ten dollar, always give five, ten dollar, your Missie give eighty cent!”