Farquharson being famous for painting snow and sheep quickly saw the point, and taking her card, and a pencil from his pocket, exclaimed:
“Here it is!” and below the Chinese writing he drew a little lamb.
Mrs. Kendal, on his other side, leant over to hear what was going on, and laughingly said:
“I am jealous. Although not a ewe lamb, I think I deserve a sheep.” Whereupon Farquharson picked up her card, and with wonderful rapidity drew a sheep, and handing it back, said:
“I am very sorry, Mrs. Kendal, it is only a black sheep.”
It was all done so quickly it was quite a delightful incident.
Then I asked the Minister to write his name in Latin characters above the Chinese, and he did so; whereupon I proceeded to read the first word as “Lie.”
“No,” he said, “that is a bad word in English, but it is not my name. My father, Li Hung Chang, went to Paris, and as the Frenchmen pronounced his name “Lee” we have remained “Li” ever since. So I am now known by that title, and go about in Europe as Lord Li, although it sometimes causes my countrymen to smile when they hear it.”
Lord Li (Lee) told me the only foreigner he had ever known who spoke Chinese like a Chinaman was Sir Robert Hart; “And he speaks it as well as I do.”
Later I chaffed my Chinese friend about our English tea, and asked him if he considered it poison.