You will remember, dear, that I once showed you a copy of Géricault’s masterpiece ‘The Raft of the Medusa’? You may recall also that we were so affected by his depiction of the plight of the doomed castaways on the raft that the print became quite damp with our tears? Only a man who had himself experienced great tragedy could create such a moving portrait of suffering and loss, we agreed: well, this is yet another aspect of Mr King’s resemblance to the Artist of my imagination – for there attaches to him an air of the most plangent melancholy. So striking is this element of his appearance that it does not come as a surprise to learn (as I did from Mr Karabedian) that he has indeed suffered an almost unendurable loss.

It appears that Mr King’s family circumstances were such that he had to leave his home, in America, when he was very young. He was sent to Canton when he was but seventeen years old – he was then even paler and more delicate in appearance than he is now, and was thus subjected to all manner of bullying and ballyragging by the rowdier fanquis. The tenor of their taunts will be apparent to you from the nickname he was given then – ‘Miss King’ (and you may not credit it, Puggly dear, but this appellation is still in use, being frequently whispered behind his back. This is not the least of the reasons why I am so much in sympathy with Mr King for I am myself no stranger to such names (‘Lady Chin’ry’! ‘Hijra’!)) I too know very well what it is to be tormented by packs of loutish budmashes (oh, if you only knew, Puggly dear, of all my encounters with langooty-ripping thugs; of the many times I have had to fight bare-chuted with badzats …).

But Mr King was luckier than I – Providence took pity on him and granted him a Friend. A year or two after he came to Canton, it happened that another American lad travelled to China to join the same firm. His name was James Perit and he was by all accounts a Golden Youth, brilliant in intellect, of charming address, and blessed with uncommon good looks (I have seen a picture of him – and had I not known that it was painted in Canton I would have thought the sitter was none other than Mr Gainsborough’s ‘Blue Boy’!).

I do not know if this is all in my own head, Puggly dear (and I think it may well be so, because I am, as you know, an unregenerate dreamer) – but I am persuaded that my Géricault and the Blue Boy enjoyed the most perfect Friendship in the short time that was to be granted to them. But it would not last – for barely had James Perit reached the age of twenty-one when he contracted a virulent intermittent fever …

Well I will not draw it out, my darling Pugglee-ranee (the blots on this page will show you how much this tragedy affects me). Suffice it to say the Golden Youth was struck down – he now lies buried in the foreign cemetery on French Island, not far from Whampoa.