The Great Chinese Puzzle.

Even China, that land of contradictions (not to mention arguments), where a mandarin is not an orange with an inferiority complex, and where a boy in the railway service starts at the top of the ladder and works his way down to the manager's chair, has railways—except when the bandits have them. Certainly the theoretical traveller is never sure whether the ticket he gets at the little window is for Manchuko, the week's washing, or a pop in the local lottery, but a railway is always a railway as long as there is a spot of steam in the boilers.

And so, dear readers, after reading this reprehensible rumble on railways, if you know any more than when you began, you know more than I know, now that I have finished.