"Then I spotted you, and in a flash I got an idea that ought to take and turn out really great if you'll come in.Now follow this: Missionary's tent in the wilds of Pekin.Domestic interior by lamp-light.Missionary (me) reading evening paper; missionary's wife (the missus) making tea, and between times singing to keep the small pet goat quiet (small goat, a pillow, horsecloth, and pocket-handkerchief).Breaks down singing, sobs, and says she feels a strange all-over presentiment.Missionary admits being a bit fluffed himself, and lets out about a notice signed in blood that he's seen in the city.""Carried upon a pole?" this person demanded, feeling that something of a literary nature might yet be wrested into the incident.
"On a flagstaff if you like," conceded the other one magnanimously."A notice to the effect that it is the duty of every jack mother's son of them to douse the foreign devils, man, woman, and child, and especially the talk-book pass-hat-round men.Also that he has had several brick-ends heaved at him on his way back.Then stops suddenly, hits his upper crust, and says that it's like his blamed fat-headedness to frighten her; while she clutches at herself three times and faints away.""Amid the voluminous burning of blue lights?" suggested this person resourcefully.
"By rights there should be," admitted the one who was devising the representation; "but it will hardly run to it.Anyway, it costs nothing to turn the lamp down--saves a bit in fact, and gives an effect.Then outside, in the distance at first you understand, you begin to work up the sound of the advancing mob--rattles, shouts, tum-tums, groans, tin plates and all that one mortal man can do with hands, feet and mouth.""With the interspersal of an occasional cracker and the stirring notes produced by striking a hollow wooden fish repeatedly?" I cried; for let it be confessed that amid the portrayal of the scene my imagination had taken an allotted part.
"If you like to provide them, and don't set the bally show on fire," he replied."Anyhow, these two aren't supposed to notice anything even when the row gets louder.Then it drops and you are heard outside talking in whispers to the others--words of command and telling them to keep back half-a-mo, and so on.See?""Doubtless introducing a spoken charm and repeating the words of an incantation against omens, treachery, and other matters.""Next a flap of the tent down on the floor is raised, and you reconnoitre, looking your very worst and holding a knife between your teeth and another in each hand.Wave a hand to your followers to keep back--or come on: it makes no difference.Then you crawl in on your stomach, give a terrific howl, and stab me in the back.That rolls me under the curtain, and so lets me out.The missus ups with the wood-chopper and stands before the cradle, while you yell and dance round with the knives.That ought to be made 'the moment' of the whole piece.The great thing isto make enough noise.If you can yell louder than the talking-machine outfit on the next pitch we ought to turn money away.While you are at it I start a fresh row outside--shouts, cheers, groans, words of command and a paper bag or two.Seeing that the game is up you make a rush at the old woman; she downs you with the chopper, turns the lamp up full, shakes out a Union Jack over the sleeping infant, and finally stands in her finest attitude with one hand pointing impressively upwards and the other contemptuously downwards just as Rule Britannia is played on the cornet outside and I appear at the door in a general's full uniform and let down the curtain."For acting in the manner designated--as touching the noises both inside and out, the set dance with upraised knives, the casting to earth of himself, and being myself in turn vanquished by the aged female, with an added compact that from time to time I should be led by a chain and shown to the people from a raised platform--we agreed upon a daily reward of two pieces of silver, an adequacy of food, and a certain ambiguously-referred-to share of the gain.It need not be denied that with so favourable an opportunity of introducing passages from the Classics a much less sum would have been accepted, but having obtained this without a struggle, the one now recounting the facts raised the opportune suggestion of an inscribed placard, in order to fulfil the portent foreshadowed by William Greyson.
"Oh, we'll star you, never fear," assented the accommodating personage, and having by this time reached that spot upon the Heath where his Domestic Altar had been raised, we entered.
"All the most distinguished actors in this country take another name," he said reflectively, when he had drawn forth a parchment of praiseworthy dimensions and ink of three colours, "and though I have nothing to say against Kong Ho Tsin Cheng Quank Paik T'chun Li Yuen Nung for quiet unostentatious dignity, it doesn't have just the grip and shudder that we want.Now how does 'Fang' strike you?" and upon my courteous acquiescence that this indeed united within it those qualities which he required, he traced its characters in red ink upon a lavish scale.
"'Fang Hung Sin' about fits the idea of snap and bloodthirstiness, Ishould say," he continued, and using the brush and all the colours with an expert proficiency which would infallibly gain him an early recognition at any of our competitive examinations, he presently laid before me the following gracefully-composed notice, which was suspended from a conspicuous pole about the door of the tent on the following day.
FANG HUNG SIN The Captured Boxer Chieftain.
Under a strong guard, and by arrangement with the British and Chinese authorities concerned,Fang Hung Sin
Will positively re-enact the GORY SCENES of CARNAGE in which he took a LEADING and SANGUINARY PART during the LATE RISING.
ALONE IN PEKIN Or, What a Woman can do.
