I wished to do some writing, and sat down at one of the tables.

A crowd gathered round me, and were much interested.

One elderly Chinese with huge glasses, a wag in his own way, seeing that I did not speak Chinese, thought to make me understand and divert the crowd by the loudness of his speech, and, insisting that I was deaf, yelled into my ears in tones that shook the tympanum.

I told the foolish fellow, in English, that the less he talked the better I could understand him; but he persisted, and poked his face almost into mine, but withdrew it and hobbled off in umbrage when I drew the attention of the bystanders to the absurd capacity of his mouth, which was larger than any mule's.
I must admit that my knowledge of Chinese was very scanty, so scanty indeed as to be almost non-existent.

What few words I knew were rarely intelligible; but, as Mrs.General Baynes, when staying at Boulogne, found Hindostanee to be of great help in speaking French, so did I discover that English was of great assistance to me in conversing in Chinese.