Only it is not an ivory ball which is rolling over its surface, but an express of the Grand Transasiatic running at sixty kilometres an hour.
Leaving the station of Tchontchai behind, we enter station at nine o'clock in the evening.

The stoppage is to last two hours.

We get out onto the platform.
As we are leaving the car I am near Major Noltitz, who asks young Pan Chao: "Have you ever heard of this mandarin Yen Lou, whose body is being taken to Pekin ?" "Never, major." "But he ought to be a personage of consideration, to be treated with the honor he gets." "That is possible," said Pan Chao; "but we have so many personages of consideration in the Celestial Empire." "And so, this mandarin, Yen Lou ?" "I never heard him mentioned." Why did Major Noltitz ask the Chinaman this question?
What was he thinking about?
.