Guy Boothby

“ We followed him through the dwelling into a room on the left-hand side. Then Nikola bade him call in the chief Mafoo, and when he appeared discharged his account and bade him be gone.
“We are now in Pekin,” said Nikola to me as soon as we were alone, “and it behoves us to play our cards carefully. Remember, as I have so often told you, I am a man of extreme sanctity and I shall guide my life and actions to that end. There is, as you see, a room leading out of this. In it I shall take up my abode. You will occupy this one. It must be your business to undertake that no one sees me. ”

“ A footfall in the street would echo against the wall with a mysterious clearness, and the sound of a dog barking in a neighbouring compound was intensified till it might have open the barking of a dozen. ”

“ We entered the city by a gateway that would have been considered insignificant in a third-rate Afghan village, and having paid the tolls demanded of us wondered in which direction we had best proceed to the lodgings to which our friend in Tientsin had directed us.
Pressing a smart-looking youth into our service we were conducted by a series of tortuous thoroughfares to a house in a mean quarter of the city. By the time we reached it it was quite dark, and it was only after repeated knockings upon the door that we contrived to make those within aware of our presence. ”

“ A Chinese inn, particularly in the interior, is seldom a cheerful place, and this example was certainly no exception to the rule. It was, as I have said, villainously dirty. The food with which we were served consisted of almost raw eggs, tough fowls and a curiously-cooked mess of pork. ”

“ It is a well-known fact that though Chinese ponies do nor present a very picturesque outward appearance, there are few animals living that can equal them in pluck and endurance. Our whole cavalcade, harness and pack-saddles included, might have been purchased for a twenty-pound note, but I very much doubt if the most costly animal to be seen in Rotten Row on an afternoon in the season could have carried us half so well on our way as those shaggy little beasts, which stood scarcely more than 13 hands. ”