Page:Ernest Bramah - Kai Lungs Golden Hours.djvu/99

 the delicacy of the message, for, as it is well written, 'To the starving a blow from a skewer of meat is more acceptable than a caress from the hand of a maiden, said Kiau Sun. "Whereunto remember, thou two-stomached merchant, that although the house in question is yours, the street is mine."

"By what title?" demanded Wong Pao contentiously.

"By the same that confers this well-appointed palace upon you," replied Sun: "because it is my home."

"The point is one of some subtlety," admitted Wong Pao, "and might be pursued to an extreme delicacy of attenuation if it were argued by those whose profession it is to give a variety of meanings to the same thing. Yet even allowing the contention, it is none the less an unendurable affliction that your voice should disturb my peacefully conducted enterprise."

"As yours would have done mine, O concave-witted Wong Pao!"

"That," retorted the merchant, "is a disadvantage that you could easily have averted by removing yourself to a more distant spot."

"The solution is equally applicable to your own case, mandarin," replied Kiau Sun affably.

"Alas!" exclaimed Wong Pao, with an obvious inside bitterness, "it is a mistake to argue with persons of limited intelligence in terms of courtesy. This, doubtless, was the meaning of the philosopher Nhy-hi when he penned the observation, 'Death, a woman, and a dumb mute always have the last word.' Why did I have you conducted hither to convince you dispassionately, rather than send an armed guard to force you away by violence?"