Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/177

 years. Great-grandfather Mark, stepping here seventy years before, could have found it in nowise different—yet how remote, in America, seemed 1847! The vast machinery of China is geared to a slower plan.

But now came the master of this house, Huen, grandson of T'ang Min—tall, courteous, inscrutable, clad all in cumquat-colored silk. He bowed very politely and shook hands cordially, Chinese fashion, with himself, while Mark and Alan—feeling quite silly and rather embarrassed—did the same. The interpreter, in the background, began droning a long speech. Mark felt all at once that it was a wildly impossible thing—this demanding two hundred thousand taels from an unknown and unsuspecting gentleman, and that the whole expedition was very like to be a wild goose chase. But Mr. Huen had now produced a large pair of spectacles and was busily reading the paper which Mark had mechanically given him. When he finished he smiled, and looked very keenly and kindly at the boys over the spectacles.

"He says," interpreted the student hastily, "that you are very honorably invite to partake of his humble meal, and the hospitality of his