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. And then as the buzz of
conversation went round the table again, and perhaps because of
their having spoken of the YOUNG Emperor and the young President,
I turned to Governor Hu, who had an unusually long, white beard
which reached almost to his waist as he sat at table, and said:
"Your Excellency, what is your honourable age?"
"I was seventy years old my last birthday," he replied.
"And he is still as strong as either of us young men," said I,
turning to Prince Chun.
"Oh, yes," said the Prince; "he is good for ten years yet, and by
that time he can use his beard as an apron."
"It is an ill wind that blows no one good," says the proverb, and
this was never more forcibly illustrated than in the case of the
death of the lamented Baron von Kettler. Had it not been for this
unfortunate occurrence, Prince Chun would not have been sent to
Germany to convey the apologies of the Chinese government to the
German Emperor, and he would thus never have had the opportunity
of a trip to Europe; and the world might once more have beheld a
regent on the dragon throne who had never seen anything a hundred
miles from his own capital.
Prince Chun started on this journey with such a retinue as only
the Chinese government can furnish. He had educated foreign
physicians and interpreters, and, like the great Viceroy Li Hung-
chang, he had a round fan with the Eastern hemisphere painted on
one side and the Western on the other, and the route he was to
travel distinctly outlined on both, with all the places he was to
pass through, or to stop at on the trip, plainly marked
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