“Well, gentlemen,” he said at last, through Mr. Tenney as interpreter, “you don’t look any the worse for your long journey.”
“We are glad to hear your excellency say so,” we replied; “it is gratifying to know that our appearance speaks well for the treatment we have received in China.”
We hope our readers will consider the requirements of Chinese etiquette as sufficient excuse for our failure to say candidly that, if we looked healthy, it was not the fault of his countrymen.
“Of all the countries through which you have passed, which do you consider the best?” the viceroy then asked.
In our answer to this question the reader would no doubt expect us to follow etiquette, and say that we thought China was the best; and, perhaps, the viceroy himself had a similar expectation. But between telling a positive lie, and not telling the truth, there is perhaps sufficient difference to shield us from the charge of gross inconsistency. We answered, therefore, that in many respects, we considered America the greatest country we had seen. We ought of course to have said that no reasonable [pg 227]person in the world would ever think of putting any other country above the Celestial Empire; our bluntness elicited some surprise, for the viceroy said:
“If then you thought that America was the best why did you come to see other countries?”
“Because until we had seen other countries,” we replied, “we did not know that America was the best.” But this answer the viceroy evidently considered a mere subterfuge. He was by no means satisfied.
“What was your real object in undertaking such a peculiar journey?” he asked rather impatiently.
“To see and study the world and its peoples,” we answered; “to get a practical training as a finish to a theoretical education. The bicycle was adopted only because we considered it the most convenient means of accomplishing that purpose.”
The viceroy, however, could not understand how a man should wish to use his own strength when he could travel on the physical force of some one else; nor why it was that we should adopt a course through central Asia and northwestern China when the southern route through India would have been far easier and less dangerous. He evidently gave it up as a conundrum, and started out on another line.