'This morning early the scribe was at me before I was dressed. It was the small debt again. The Chinaman knew better than to seize the man; that would not have paid; he seized his coat, and actually was detaining that as ransom for a sum equal to fourpence English! He made a direct appeal to me to pay it, and of course I did it; though I was a little disgusted with the man's meanness, as I had given him a present of money amounting to about 1_l._ a few days before. This son of his is a great eyesore to me. He is a young lama, about as wicked a boy as I know. His brothers died of consumption, and this fact enables him to do anything he likes with his parents. If they refuse anything, he has only to feign sickness, and they are in a huge state over him. He is a thoroughly bad lad. Will not work, will not study, will do nothing but make trouble and expense for his parents. Just fancy! His father and mother are poor as church mice; and when his father was coming to Peking the boy must beg to come too, and the father like a fool must take him, and be at great expense for travelling, &c. One thing made me furious. Out of the money I gave him he spent about 4_s._ or more buying his good-for-nothing son an elegant snuff-bottle. In short, the man's folly makes it utterly useless to help him. I once before relieved him from threatened detention for debt for the amount of twopence-halfpenny, just after I had made him a present, and I expect perhaps to have to do so again. What astonishes me is that the Mongols _can_ get into debt so far. I don't believe my Mongol can pass a single man he knows without being in danger of being dunned for some hopeless debt or other. And yet his debt does not seem to distress him. He is most distressed because people will not lend him more money. 'The last of the chiefs was rather rich. He is (he says) to have a profitable piece of Government work in hand in spring, and on the strength of that wanted me to lend him now a shoe of silver, about 15_l._, to be repaid to me in spring. Of course I did not. He then, though my guest, kept on saying, "Heart small, heart small," which pretty much amounts to saying, "Coward, coward." He finally took revenge by offering to lend _me_ a shoe of silver in spring, but of course I declined. A pretty pair they are! If what they say be true, in spring they may make a good thing of it; but this has happened to the scribe before, and in two months after he was as poor as ever. In short, they are foolish and thriftless.