“And if you had been caught?”
He looked grave even then at the remembrance of that bygone desperate adventure.
“Oh death, certainly.”
“Death?”
“Yes, a long and lingering death,” and the thought of what he had escaped twenty years ago, was on his face.
I looked at him with interest, a tall stout Chinaman with his hair cut short in the modern fashion, a long grey robe of silk reaching to his feet, and a little short black sleeveless jacket over it. He did not look, pleasant as he was, as if he would ever have dared anything, but then I have never thought of any Chinaman as likely to risk his life without hope of gain, and to risk it for mere curiosity as a man of my own people might have done! It was throwing a new light on the Chinese. I rather admired him and then I found he was Eastern after all.
We talked of Yuan Shih K'ai, and he, being of the opposition party, expressed his opinion freely, and, considering all things, very boldly about him.
“He has eighteen wives,” said he shaking his head as if this was the unpardonable sin in a man who desired to imitate the manners and customs of the West.
I repeated this to a friend, and he burst out laughing. “Why the old sinner,” said he, “what's he throwing stones for? He's got seventeen and a half himself!” So it seems it will be some time before forbidden cities on a small scale will be out of fashion in China.
And still, in these days of the Republic, the Forbidden City of the Manchus dominates Peking.