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161

filled to overflowing; so we came home, and stopped at Karatzas on the way for tea. 

Tuesday, 2 February
A few days ago my Bohemian waxwing died. I had not been feeding him enough of the right kind of food, appraently. Today was a Lung Fo Ssu, and when Dorothy came up to meet me after her class at T'ung Fu we went to the fair, and bought a new [[underlined]] t'ai-p'ing [[/underlined]] for me and also a [[underlined]] tzu-tzu-he'r [[/underlined]], a kind of chickadee. At the same time we bought two pair of white mice for Dorothy, who is crazy about the things and has been since she wasa child. When we got home we spent several hours in making a cage for the larger mice and fixing the bird cages. I had a glass-fronted box that was made to house three bronze deities. The deities had been standing out of their box for some time, so I used it to make a mouse cage. It was a good cage, but the big ones would not let the little ones live with them, so we had to fix two boxes, using for the second the little cage we had bought the small pair in originally. 

We went to a perfectly dumb dinner, where no one could carry on a decent conversation, and victrola dancing and bridge had to be resorted to fill in time. It was the sort of party that is all bore, and from which it is impossible to leave early. How much better the Chinese parties, where one usually leaves very shortly after eating, and all are in good mind and good humor. 

Wednesday, 3 February
We called on the Eastmans this afternoon, then took Lee and Frieda out for duck dinner with us, and the famous old restaurant up near the east gate of the palace. 

Thursday, 4 February 
A good part of my spare time was used in final preparations for the Wen Yu Hui meeting tonight. Mr. Perceval Landon spoke of "The Four Holy Places of Buddhism" and illustrated his lecture with new slides many made from his own sketches. We had about thirty for dinner, and for the lecture we had almost ninety more, so that, by charging $1 for the lecture I took in enough to get the Wen Yu Hui out of debt and sitting pretty. Never has such a large crowd attended a lecture, and never have there been so many from diplomatic circles. I was a distinct success.