Regarding this question, Chen Muwu thought carefully for a long time and finally gave a one-word answer: Go!
There were two reasons for him to make this decision:
First of all, the remuneration proposed by the other party in the letter was full of sincerity. Five hundred yuan was indeed not a small amount.
Moreover, Chen Muwu knew that sooner or later he would have to go abroad to study abroad. Only when he was poor and rich could he be prepared for danger. An extra silver dollar in his pocket would give him a sense of security.
Although the Chen family is not short of money, and the three brothers are respectful brothers and will not have conflicts and disputes over property distribution, this does not mean that Chen Muwu can spend money freely. Otherwise, as time goes by, Kun Zhong, no matter how harmonious he is, will There will also be dissatisfaction between the brothers, which will eventually lead to the brothers being at odds with each other.
The second is Chen Muwu's selfishness. He finally returned to this era. In addition to wanting to "make a name for himself and comfort his life", he also wanted to see with his own eyes every influential figure recorded in the textbook.
Nowadays, Bei University is full of talents. In addition to Dr. Hu, who plays cards all day long in the diary, there is also Mr. Shouchang, who has a mustache, and Brother Xun, who is relatively kind-hearted and is a professor of physics. , Ding Xilin, who is also the executive director of the Dramatists Association, and so on.
Now that he has such an opportunity to meet with you at Dafang Family's expense, how could he miss it?
(Actually, there is a third reason, which is plot killing. If Chen Muwu doesn’t go north, then the lazy author will have to rack his brains to think of an even more unreasonable reason to change the map.)
So Chen Muwu took advantage of his lunch break to go to the North Station Telegraph Office located downstairs of the Railway Bureau and took a telegram to Professor Hu from Bei University.
He originally wanted to write a letter, but then he thought that it would take three days at the earliest to send a letter from Jihai to Beijing.
Hu Shi's letter was signed on the 6th, but when I received it today, it was already four days later on the 10th.
In this way, one week of correspondence with Bei Jing is gone.
Moreover, when writing, you also face the risk of the letter being lost on the road. In later generations, when shopping online, you may also face the possibility of express delivery traveling around the country in all directions, but it will not be delivered to you, not to mention the current even more chaotic world. era!
Compared with writing a letter, a telegram is undoubtedly much more convenient and faster. He sent a telegram to Bei University at noon today, and he will receive a reply at the earliest tonight, or at the earliest when he goes to work tomorrow morning - if Dr. Hu is willing to spend money to give him If you send a telegram back.
The reason why Chen Muwu was so anxious to reply was that he was afraid that something might change if he was too late: What if Beida regrets it if he doesn't settle the matter quickly?
Chen Muwu found Beida's telegram registration number from the telegraph manual and filled in the beginning of the telegram form.
This four-digit code only costs one word to accurately send the telegram to Beida. If there is no telegraph registration, you can only write down the detailed address honestly. You must know that these addresses are also charged on a per-word basis!
He pondered for another long time, then took out his pen and wrote in the content column the following twelve words: "Brother Shi, Yu Xinxi, When can I go, Chen, Hui".
Of course, there are no pauses in his message, so how to break up the sentence depends entirely on the recipient's writing skills.
This is already the limit of Chen Muwu's abbreviation skills.
The words "Brother Shi" indicate the recipient.
After all, telegram registration can only allow the telegram delivery boy to deliver the telegram to Peking University. If you don't write your name, the concierge will not know which professor to send the telegram to.
According to the current red tape among literati, Chen Muwu should actually call Hu Shi Mr. Shizhi. After all, he had listened to Hu Shi's lectures when he was at the school. Once he was a teacher, he would always be...forget it, he didn't want to recognize him as his father.
Chen Muwu originally thought of writing the word "suitable", but due to etiquette, he finally added the word "brother" worth one dime and two cents.
"Yu Xin Xi" means that I have received the letter on the 6th.
"Pingshui Yun" is a rhyme book in ancient China. The character "鱼" is the sixth of the fifteen Shangping rhymes in the book. It is used in telegraphs to represent the sixth day of the month, which is the sixth day. .
"Yu Xin Xi" saves another word compared to "Six Days Xin Xi".
Contrary to those internet writers of later generations who only think about how to make money with just a few words, when sending a telegram nowadays, the sender is racking his brains to think about how to reduce the number of words and convey the most information in the shortest words. In order to save more money.
"When can I go" does not need to be explained. This is when Chen Muwu asked Hu Shi that he could go to Bei University to give lectures on that day. It was also the only useful information conveyed in the entire telegram.
"Chen" of course refers to Chen Muwu. The word "grey" is used in the same way as the word "fish" in front of it. The tenth of the flat finals in "Pingshui Yun" represents the date when this telegram was sent, which is the tenth.
Twelve words plus a telegram registration cost Chen Muwu 1.6 cents, almost as much as the price of the two registered letters sent to Europe in the morning!
In the afternoon of that day, Hu Shi, who was far away in Beijing, received the telegram from Chen Muwu.
Seeing how eager he was to reply as soon as he received the letter, Hu Shi secretly thought that the fish had taken the bait. Fortunately, he, Old Hu, had lived up to the mission assigned by Minister Shulman.
Since Chen Muwu had sent the telegram, Hu Shi had no reason to write a reply. He immediately drafted a telegram. The general content was that Beida University is waiting for Chen Muwu to go north at any time. Please send a telegram three days in advance to facilitate the preparation. Reception work.
Not to mention that Hu Shi went to Cai Yuanpei with a telegram and informed him that he had successfully invited Chen Muwu to give lectures.
Shan said that the next day, after Chen Muwu received Hu Shi's reply, he began to make preparations for going north.
The most important issue is to ask for leave, give lectures for two weeks, plus preparation work and traveling back and forth on the road. Added together, he estimates that he will need to be away from work for about a month.
The British chief engineer had only praised himself two days ago, so it shouldn't be difficult to take half a month's leave.
Sure enough, when the British man heard that Chen Muwu was going to give a lecture at Bei University, he agreed to leave without hesitation.
He also complained a few words to Chen Muwu, saying that our two-way railway administration, which controls the Shanghai-Nanjing and Shanghai-Hangzhou-Ningbo railways, makes money, but it has never forgotten its investment in education. Every year, it turns over ten Ten thousand yuan is given to the Ministry of Transport to run universities. Nanyang University alone can receive 66,000 yuan in silver dollars every year.
We all live in the same area and share the same transportation system, and Nanyang University has not invited you to give lectures. They would rather invest money in hosting a football match between eight universities. What a bunch of rip-offs!
Chen Muwuxin said, it’s not just about giving lectures, they even want me to teach!
The chief engineer was talking about the eight-university football match held a few days ago. In the final, Nanyang University defeated Fudan 3-1 and won the championship.
Chen Muwu was very surprised. How could this British guy not like football?
Little did he know that the gentlemen and ladies of the upper class in Britain now watch cricket, and football is still a popular entertainment project for blue-collar workers.
In later generations, most people in Britain liked football, and a special group called football hooligans was born.
However, the popularity of cricket in the UK has declined significantly, and it is not even comparable to that in India. Is it really the British orthodoxy in South Asia?
No wonder Brother Asan can become the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
