“You don’t say Melican man?”
“No; I am not a washerwoman,” replied he, with a smile. “I am a member of the imperial diplomatic corps, and, if you will permit me to say so, a gentleman.”
I gave him to understand that he was more than welcome. (He was six feet two, if he was an inch.)
“Thanks. But my object in calling—”
My retainer would be a stiff one, never fear—
“I call, not as a diplomat, but as a philosopher.”
I sighed the sigh of a jurisconsult.
“I come to discuss with you a dream which I understand you have done us Chinese the honor to dream about us.”
I had not mentioned my dream to a soul. How had he heard of it? I never once dreamt that I was dreaming again.
“You, too, I understand, are a philosopher,—the greatest philosopher, if common fame may be relied on, throughout the length and breadth—”