It is remembered, for instance, how the Empress Dowager once took a violent prejudice against him when his career as a high official seemed to be all but made. This was in the days after the Boxer affair when the newly restored Court was making an heroic effort to recover lost ground, when the advice of the famous' Hu-Kuane, Viceroy, Chang Chih-tung, who had held the Yangtze neutral in opposition to Imperial orders during the orgy in the North, was being most thoughtfully considered and usually accepted and when exceptionally capable men for special tasks of reconstruction were being everywhere sought. Chang Chih-tung suggested a special examination of Hanlin graduates previously passed as a means of skimming off the creme de la creme. The advice was takei the examination held and the name: of the remarkably highly qualified were handed to the ccording to re able tradition which came long, ag> to the writer vira voce, he spent some months hiding in Mr. Tang Shao-yi's yamen learning (and learning very well indeed) the noble game of poker from Mr. Ku Hung-ming, who was then the chief sceretary to the Viceroy Chang Chih tung.
What turned the old Empress so strongly against Mr. Liang.the writer has never heard adequately explained. We all know that erudite and opinionate Chinese form the strongest possible impressions off-hand on the strength physiognomy, hand writing and euphony of & name, or the tack of ft, and almost any first impression may have turned the irascible old Dowager against the promising young scholar; but a bare dictionary rendering of his name "Si yi" which is easiest translated the readiest clue to a sudden imperial aversion.
The Return to Favour Whatever his disqualification at Court, Mr. Tang Shao-yi_ stood by his refugee and eventually established him not only in Yuan Shih-Kai's favour but restored him to official life, in a modest way, before the Empress Dowager's "death. With Yuan's return to official life, his assumption of the presidency and his preparations for his imperial career, Mr. Liang waxed Digger and bigger ina most spectacular way. He finally became the exalted financial manipulafor to the Government of China and the supreme promotor of the nipnarchy movement. Then, with Yuan's death and the discredit that fell upon the, enterprise,.he_disappeared once more abruptly from official life. He did not again appear until the autumn of 1918 when, after Lis Shih-chang's s0- called election to the presidency, he emerged with his ageustomed abruptness as speaker' of the Senate, Tu 1921 she became Hai Shih-chang's Premier under the direct patronage of Chang Tso-lin and steered a course which brought hit into direct conflict with Wu Pei-fu, who accused him of conspiracy with the Japanese designed to take the question of the rendition of Shantung out of the hands of the Washington conference, and finally brought on the war wherein Chang Tso-lin was defeated, in 1922, by Wu Pei-fu and driven beyond the Great Wall. IHsi Shih-chang war most unceremoniously thrown out of office by Wu Pei-fu because of policies for which Mr, Liang was Feputed to have made him respensible, Liang—Shih-y therefore gained credit, up to that time, for having been' expunged. from' the official slate because of the Empress Dowager's intuition, brought about Yuan downfall and death and for having steered Chang Tso-lin and Hsi Shih-chang' to complete ship week.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.