which is an aggravating accessory to vague replies. It sig- nifies both interrogatively, "How many?" and affirmatively, "Several." "How many days have you been here?" you ask. "Yes, I have been here several days," is the reply. Of all the ambiguous words in the Chinese language, probably the most ambiguous is the personal (or impersonal) pronoun t'a, which signifies promiscuously "he," "she," or "it." Some- times the speaker designates the subject of his remarks by vaguely waving his thumb in the direction of the subject's home, or towards the point where he was last heard of. But more frequently the single syllable t'a is considered wholly sufficient as a relative, as a demonstrative pronoun, and as a specifying adjective. Under these circumstances, the talk of a Chinese will be like the testimony of a witness in an English court, who described a fight in the following terms: "He'd a stick, and he'd a stick, and he w'acked he, and he w'acked he, and if he'd a w'acked he as hard as he w'acked he, he'd a killed he, and not he he."
"Why did you not come when you were called?" you venture to inquire of a particularly negligent servant. "Not on account of any reason," he answers, with what appears to be frank precision. The same state of mental confusion leads to a great variety of acts, often embarrassing, and to a well- ordered Occidental intellect always irritating. The cook makes it a matter of routine practice to use up the last of whatever there may be in his charge, and then serves the next meal minus some invariable concomitant. When asked what he means by it, he answers ingenuously that there was no more. "Then why did you not ask for more in time?" "I did not ask for any more," is his satisfactory explanation. The man to whom you have paid a sum of cash in settlement of his account, going to the trouble of unlocking your safe and making change with scrupulous care, sits talking for "an old half-day" on miscellaneous subjects, and then remarks with
