Afterwards, when we were making our way back, Charlie spoke at some length about his departed Friend, and I understood that this loss is in no small part responsible for his deep attachment to China. Mr Perit’s grave has become for him an anchor, as it were, tying him to this land. For that reason, and many others, it is impossible for him to think of the Chinese as a race apart: he sees them as a people who have their virtues and their failings, as do people everywhere – but to exploit the more feeble-minded among them by pandering to their weaknesses seems to him just as unconscionable here as it would be anywhere else. And the worst of it, in his view, is that the foreign trade has created, in the eyes of the Chinese, an inseparable linkage between opium and Christianity. Since many of the men who peddle the drug are loud in proclaiming their piety it is inevitable that the Chinese should draw the inference that there is no conflict between trafficking in opium and the strict observance of Christianity. It is intolerable to Charlie that a simple moral principle should be clearer to pagans than to Christians.

In speaking of these things Charlie’s mien became so troubled that I knew some event of recent provenance was weighing on him – and I was right.

Jacqua and I have been so sequestered of late, Puggly dear (and so happily so), that I had but little notion of all that has been happening in Fanqui-town – although it must be said that I doubt it would have been much different had I been out and about (for I am scarcely the kind of fellow who is likely to be included in the deliberations of Serious Men). But unlike me, Charlie is absolutely in the thick of it, largely by virtue of his membership in the Committee. What he told me about the most recent developments came as a complete revelation (and I cannot conceal from you, Puggly dear, that I find it rather thrilling to be taken into his confidence on such weighty matters).

It appears that the Chamber of Commerce has recently received an edict from the newly arrived Commissioner demanding that they surrender all the opium that is currently stored in their ships; they have also been asked to furnish bonds, pledging that they will never again smuggle opium into China. This has caused, as you may imagine, quite a flutter in the Committee: many of them have enormous cargoes of opium stored in their ships, and they are not the kind of men who will tamely surrender vast quantities of wealth in response to a mere edict, no matter how sternly couched. At their last meeting Charlie exerted himself to explain to the others that their losses would only be temporary and could be quickly offset by trading in other articles – his own firm, Olyphant & Co., has demonstrated for all the world to see that it is perfectly possible to make substantial profits even without dealing in opium.