“I’m not surprised,” said his master. “They were tending that way a year ago. These new women are out for the devirilization of man. Perhaps by this time they’re in Parliament, passing firework legislation and playing the devil with all our laws and customs. You haven’t yet heard, by any chance, whether the occupation of monthly nursing is confined exclusively to the male sex?”
“The enactment, if such there be,” replied Quong Ho solemnly, “is not, to my knowledge, in force in this remote locality.”
“Let us thank the gods, Quong Ho,” said Baltazar, “that we’re out of this feminist hurly-burly. The little I saw of the movement was antipathetic to my philosophy of life. A society in which women regard the bearing of children as a physical accident of no account, and deny the responsibilities which such an event entails, must be doomed to decay, or, at the best, to bitter disillusionment. The more I hear of contemporary England the less I like it. It seems to be woman-ridden; curiously enough by two camps in apparent opposition, but in reality waging joint warfare on man. The world has never yet beheld such a sex campaign. One section demands luxury beyond the dreams of Byzantium at its rottenest, and the other claims supreme political power.”
“It is well, sir,” said Quong Ho, “that you repudiated the imbecile suggestion of the House Agent to the effect that you should employ a woman housekeeper of mature age to superintend this establishment.”
“It is lucky for you, Quong Ho, that I did,” grinned Baltazar. “She would have made you sit up.”
Quong Ho, with clasped hands and lowered head, respectfully asserted himself. “If I do not sit up sufficiently for your satisfaction, sir, it is for you to reprimand me.”
“I only spoke in jest, Quong Ho,” said Baltazar. “Our Western humour is rather subtle.”
“I will make a note of it,” replied Quong Ho.
“By such notation and accumulation of detail one gathers knowledge,” said Baltazar. “By co-ordination one acquires wisdom. Continue on this, the only path of philosophy, and your old age will be blessed. In the meantime, please keep your observations of changes at Water-End to yourself.”
“Obedience to your honourable commands, my master,” replied Quong Ho, in Chinese, “is the sacred duty of this entirely inconsiderable person. But may one so inferior as myself humbly remind your illustrious greatness that it was you who originally propounded to me a question which I was bound to answer.”