Mr. Squiers has been assigned two rooms of this house placed at the disposal of the United States Legation. They are situated at the back, opening directly on the filthy, dirty Chinese servants’ quarters. Mrs. Squiers, my maid, and I have the large room, which is practically the living-room for the family and mess of the First Secretary of the Legation. Our trunks, with two silver chests, and all the many dozens of tins of food that we brought from our Legation, are banked all round, up against the walls. The big double mattress on which we sleep is rolled up in the daytime, and we use it for seats as well as the trunks. We have no furniture, as Dr. Poole moved his bed to the hospital and found other places for the rest that he had, so the room is completely empty. Perhaps it is just as well, however, because we have great difficulty in finding a place big enough to spread our mattress out when night comes as our stores and trunks almost fill the room. The three children have their respective cribs, which we were wise enough to bring over from our Legation. They are placed in the other room which looks out on the little avenue that runs through the compound. The air is much purer there than in our room, where we breathe the servants’ air and gas which rises from a broken sewer. The French and German governesses are placed in the ends of small halls. When we were collecting a few comforts—mattresses, cribs for the children, etc.—in our Legation to bring over to this compound, we carelessly brought, too, a light-blue satin eiderdown quilt, which we took from one of the bedrooms, and now we are glad to have it, for it serves as a most admirable portable bed. When his services are not needed as orderly to Captain Strouts, Fargo Squiers gets some hours of good rest on it. He takes it to any particular spot where he thinks his services may be needed during the night, and, with a childlike ability to sleep anywhere, and an old veteran’s ability to wake up promptly, he finds this scrap of luxury from the old life doing excellent duty as a campaign adjunct. The sky-blue shade, however, is fast becoming a rich London smoke. Mr. Squiers, like other men who assist at the night-attacks, and must be ready to work anywhere at any time, sleeps in his clothes and his boots, usually in the American Legation, taking his rest in periods of forty Winks at such time as he is not needed.