"We refused to take their tea without the supply of opium;--the Emperor grew more and more incensed--told all manner of falsehoods, and asserted that our merchants had been administering opium to the Chinese, (where should they get it, I should like to know!) with the view of producing sleep and plundering the tea-factories. He then, it is said--though I don't understand this part of the story--flung his chops in the faces of the British, and at length provoked our sailors to make an attack on everything in the shape of junk that they could find. And so to war we went--all, as you perceive, through the people of the Boundary-line, and the meddling of Mehemet Ali." [Illustration] "I never clearly understood the matter before," observed Miss Dibsley, stirring her fourth cup: "but what has the Emperor been doing lately?" "Lately, why haven't you heard? My dear, to prevent the British from being supplied, he has been ordering all his people to destroy their stocks of teas--hyson, souchong, bohea, congou--all they have, and promising to indemnify them every sixpence." "Well to be sure!" exclaimed Miss Dibsley; (a little more _gunpowder_ in the pot would improve the next cup, my dear madam;) "only think! But isn't this a good deal like cutting his own nose off?" "Of course it is, and what his Celestial Majesty will be doing next, I can't guess--I must ask my friend in the Potteries _his_ opinion." "I shouldn't at all wonder," returned Miss Dibsley, "if he were to hang himself up on one of his own tea-trees by his own pigtail, as a scarecrow to frighten away the barbarians." "But if this destruction of tea is to go on, what are _we_ to do? What is to become of the tee-totallers, Miss Dibsley?' "Can't say, my dear Mrs. Hipson, unless they turn coffee-totallers." "It's a melancholy affair, love." "It is indeed, dear. That last crisp little biscuit there is positively tempting,--and now I think of it, I'll just venture on _half_ a cup more tea; that sprinkling of gunpowder holds out deliciously. That'll do--thank you--charming!--These Chinese, I believe, have nothing of a navy?" "I'm credibly informed," responded Mrs. Hipson, "that their ships are all made of earthenware--in the shape of milk-pots." [Illustration] "Yes, and their cavalry are all mounted on tea-kettles, and go by steam."