“It is nothing,” said he. “It makes me know that you are a good fellow,” added he, at the same time shaking hands with himself, after the manner of his people, with the utmost cordiality. I do not suppose that a native ever puns without a certain sense of shame; but I confess to enjoying it in a foreigner. He is always as proud as a boy whistling his first tune. “A Caucasian army is vastly superior to a Mongolian; a Caucasian individual vastly inferior.” I smiled. “Oh,” said he, “I know what your politicians say; and I find no fault with them, for they make their living by saying—judicious things. The Chinaman works for nothing and lives upon rice, so that a decent American working-man cannot compete with him. Moreover, he persists in returning to China. He won’t stay, therefore he must go. Moreover, a Celestial is a heathen, while you, dear voters, are all pious and good!” As he said this, accompanying the remark with a wink of Oriental subtlety, we both, with a common impulse, burst into a laugh so loud that a large rat, which we had observed as he cautiously stole up towards a broken egg which lay upon the dock, precipitately scampered off and down into his hole. “Oh, I don’t blame your statesmen. They, just as others, have a trade by which wives and children must be fed and clothed. Moreover,”—and leaning forward and confidentially tapping my round and shapely knee with his yellow hand, he whispered,—“moreover, your statesmen are right!” and, straightening up, he paused, enjoying my surprise. “The sentimentality of Pocahontas,” he resumed, with a wave of his hand in the direction of Jamestown, “was the ruin of her people. Opecancanough was a prophet and a statesman. Had the Indians slain the Europeans as fast as they landed—” Just then the rat thrust his sharp muzzle out of his hiding-place and warily swept the dock with his jet-bead eye. Mr. Kee turned upon him his almond oval and smiled. “I thank thee, good rat,” he cried; “for thou art both an illustration and a prophecy. Hundreds of years ago, the blue rat held sway on this continent, while you squeaked unknown in the mountains of Persia.” “’Tis a Norway rat,” I put in. “No,” said he, quietly, “he is of Persian origin, and migrated to China ages ago, during the reign, to be exact, of Ying Lung Fo. You will find it laid down in Confucius, in his great work, ‘Bang Lie Yu,’—_concerning all things_, as you would say in English.” I wonder whether he likes them best broiled or fricasseed? thought I. “The real Norway rat is little larger than a field-mouse. Your term Norway rat is simply a popular corruption of gnaw-away rat, given him as the most strikingly rodential of rodents.” “To be found, I suppose,” said I, “in Confucius’s lesser work, ‘Fool Hoo Yu,’ or, _concerning a few other things_, as we say in English.”