Chapter 23 - Page 2

hardly care to know."

It is evident that the young Celestial is a thousand and ten times
wrong, to use the numerative formula; but it is not for me to tell him
so.

At dinner Mr. and Mrs. Ephrinell, sitting side by side, hardly
exchanged a word. Their intimacy seems to have decreased since they
were married. Perhaps they are absorbed in the calculation of their
reciprocal interests, which are not yet perfectly amalgamated. Ah! they
do not count by moons and watches, these Anglo-Saxons! They are
practical, too practical!

We have had a bad night. The sky of purple sulphury tint became stormy
toward evening, the atmosphere became stifling, the electrical tension
excessive. It meant a "highly successful" storm, to quote Caterna, who
assured me he had never seen a better one except perhaps in the second
act of _Freyschütz_. In truth the train ran through a zone, so to
speak, of vivid lightning and rolling thunder, which the echoes of the
mountains prolonged indefinitely. I think there must have been several
lightning strokes, but the rails acted as conductors, and preserved the
cars from injury. It was a fine spectacle, a little alarming, these
fires in the sky that the heavy rain could not put out--these
continuous discharges from the clouds, in which were mingled the
strident whistlings of our locomotive as we passed through the stations
of Yanlu, Youn Tcheng, Houlan-Sien and Da-Tsching.

By favor of this troubled night I was able to communicate with Kinko,
to take him some provisions and to have a few minutes' conversation
with him.

"Is it the day after to-morrow," he asked, "that we arrive at Pekin?"

"Yes, the day after to-morrow, if the train is not delayed."

"Oh, I am not afraid of delays! But when my box is in the railway
station at Pekin, I have still to get to the Avenue Cha-Coua--"

"What does it matter, will not the fair Zinca Klork come and call for
it?"

"No. I advised her not to do so."

"And why?"

"Women are so impressionable! She would want to see the van in-which I
had come, she would claim the box with such excitement that suspicions
would be aroused. In short, she would run the risk of betraying me."

"You are right, Kinko."

"Besides, we shall reach the station in the afternoon, very late in the
afternoon perhaps, and the unloading of the packages will not take
place until next morning--"

"Probably."

"Well, Monsieur Bombarnac, if I am not taking too great a liberty, may
I ask a favor of you?"

"What is it?"

"That you will be present at the