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." Mr. Kuan and I became intimate friends and he painted
three pictures which he presented to me for my collection.
One day another of the court painters came to call on me and
during the conversation told me that he was painting a picture of
the Empress Dowager as the goddess of mercy. Up to that time I
had not been accustomed to think of her as a goddess of mercy,
but he told me that she not infrequently copied the gospel of
that goddess with her own pen, had her portrait painted in the
form of the goddess which she used as a frontispiece, bound the
whole up in yellow silk or satin and gave it as a present to her
favourite officials. Of course I thought at once of my collection
of paintings, and said:
"How much I should like to have a picture of the Empress Dowager
as the goddess of mercy!"
"I'll paint one for you," said he.
All this conversation I soon discovered was only a diplomatic
preliminary to what he had really come to tell me, which was that
he had been eating fish in the palace a few days before, and had
swallowed a fish-bone which had unfortunately stuck in his
throat. He said that the court physicians had given him medicine
to dissolve the fish-bone, but it had not been effective; he
therefore wondered whether one of the physicians of my honourable
country could remove it. I took him to my friend Dr. Hopkins who
lived near by, and told him of the dilemma. The doctor set him
down in front of the window, had him open his mouth, looked into
his throat where he saw a small red spot, and with a pair of
tweezers removed the offending fish-bone
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