"Your loving son,"It was a feast-day when we left Pekin, and there were a good many sports going on in the streets, as we filed out of the city on our way to the north. There was a funny procession of men on stilts. They were fantastically dressed, and waved fans and chopsticks and other things, while they shouted and sang to amuse the crowd. One of them was dressed as a woman, who pretended to hold her eyes down so that nobody could see[Pg 379] them, and she danced around on her stilts as though she had been accustomed to them all her life. In fact, the whole party were quite at home on their stilts, and would have been an attraction in any part of America. Whenever the Chinese try to do anything of this sort, they are pretty sure to do it well.
FORE:He paused abruptly, aware that certain peculiar changes were taking place in the physiognomy of the Clockwork man. His strange organism seemed to be undergoing a series of exceedingly swift and complicated[Pg 138] physical and chemical processes. His complexion changed colour rapidly, passing from its usual pallor to a deep greenish hue, and then to a hectic flush. Concurrent with this, there was a puzzling movement of the corpuscles and cells just beneath the skin.
The commotion subsided as abruptly as it had begun, and the Doctor enquired, with as much grace as his outraged instincts would allow, whether he could offer him any more.The Clockwork man emitted a soft whistling sound from between his teeth, and rubbed his nose thoughtfully against the post.XVI AN ACHING CONSCIENCE