“‘Shall I tell the lady?’ I thought. ‘It will make me look a fool, and make her feel uncomfortable,’ and as she at once told me she had been in China, and expressed pleasure at seeing me, we chatted for a few minutes, and I waited for an opportunity which would allow me to get up and go gracefully. The opportunity soon came, and I said good-bye. She thanked me very much for calling, and I left.” Again the merry little man chuckled at his intrusion.
“Ah,” said I; “but it won’t end there. If you will call upon a strange lady, she will think she met you somewhere and return the call.”
“I did not really know her, so I need not repeat my visit,” he said quietly. “But I shall not forget I have done something stupid.”
I thought it so nice of him not to tell her of his mistake, and thus give a very diplomatic ending to an awkward situation. Then came the tea. Our tea-party.
He boiled the spirit lamp, and when I took off the lid, thinking it was ready, he shook his head.
“No, no,” he said, “the water must actually boil three minutes; that is the main point.” Into the cup, really the size of a breakfast-cup, he put a small half-teaspoonful of Chinese tea.
“What a small amount,” I remarked; “we put one fat teaspoonful for each person, and one for the pot.”
“No wonder your tea is so bad, madam,” he laughed; “my arrangement is tea, yours is stew,” he continued with a wicked little twinkle.
On to these few scattered leaves Lord Li poured the boiling water, which he immediately covered with the lid. In a few moments he removed the latter, and taking the half-side of the lid instead of a spoon, stirred the surface of the tea. This he did about three times in a minute, by which time the water was slightly yellow and the leaves had all sunk to the bottom.
“Now it is ready,” he said; “remember, no sugar nor milk, ever!”