Page:Chinese Characteristics.djvu/96

 extreme faithfulness with extreme mulishness—thus making themselves an indispensably necessary nuisance—happily expressed a dilemma into which the masters of such servants are often brought, when he remarked that as regarded that particular "Boy," he was in a condition of chronic indecision, whether to kill him or to raise his wages! The Chinese master knows perfectly well that his commands will be ignored in various ways, but he anticipates this inevitable result as one might set aside a reserve for bad debts, or allow a margin for friction in mechanics.

The same greater or less disregard of orders appears to prevail through all the various ranks of Chinese officials in their relations to one another, up to the very topmost round. There are several motives any one of which may lead to the contravening of instructions, such as personal indolence, a wish to oblige friends, or, most potent of all, the magnetic influence of cash. A district magistrate who lived in a place where the water is brackish, ordered his servant to take a water-cart and draw water from a river several miles distant. The servant did nothing of the kind, but merely went to a village where he knew the water to be sweet, and provided the magistrate with as much as he wanted of this fluid, to the saving of two thirds the distance and to the entire satisfaction of all parties. If the magistrate had known to a certainty that he was disobeyed, it is not probable that he would have uttered a whisper on the subject so long as the water was good. In China "the cat that catches the rat is the good cat." Nothing succeeds like success. The dread of giving offence and the innate Chinese instinct of avoiding a disturbance would prevent misdemeanours of disobedience from being reported, though five hundred people might be in the secret. That was a typical Chinese servant who, having been told to empty the water from a cistern into something which would save it for future use, was found to have poured it all into a well! Thus he