Page:Ernest Bramah - Kai Lungs Golden Hours.djvu/260

 High Powers, for among the most inviolable of the edicts is it not written: 'Do the lame offer to carry the foot-sore; the blind to protect the one-eyed? Distrust the threadbare person who from an upper back room invites you to join him in an infallible process of enrichment; turn aside from the one devoid of pig-tail who says, "Behold, a few drops daily at the hour of the morning sacrifice and your virtuous head shall be again like a well-sown rice-field at the time of harvest"; and towards the passing stranger who offers you that mark of confidence which your friends withhold close and yet again open a different eye. So shall you grow obese in wisdom'?"

"Alas! " exclaimed Thang-li, "the inconveniences of living in an Empire where a person has to regulate the affairs of his everyday life by the sacred but antiquated proverbial wisdom of his remote ancestors are by no means trivial. Cannot this possibly mythical obstacle be flattened out by the amiable acceptance of a jar of sea-snails or some other seasonable delicacy, honourable Hien?"

"Nothing but a really well-grounded encouragement as regards Fa Fei can persuade this person to regard himself as anything but a solitary outcast," replied Hien, "and one paralysed in every useful impulse. Rather than abandon the opportunity of coming to such an arrangement he would almost be prepared to live up all idea of ever passing the examination for the second degree."

"By no means," exclaimed Thang-li hastily. "The sacrifice would be too excessive. Do not relinquish your sleuth-hound-like persistence, and success will inevitably reward your ultimate end."