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 the stage for it. And you know where I live. You also, I understand, broke and honored my unworthy bread the other day. And I am an easy man to find."

Robert Gregory deliberately pointed his revolver at Wu Li Chang's heart, and said as pointedly, "Pray be seated, Mr. Wu."

Wu bent his head politely to the pointed pistol, as if to thank it for the invitation. "With pleasure," he said, moving leisurely back to his chair. Gregory, eyeing Wu stormily, passed too to his own chair. For just a fraction of a second his back was turned to Wu; but that thin shred of time sufficed the Chinese to whip a revolver from his pocket, concealing it in his hand and in the loose sleeve of his tussore coat. Gregory banged down his chair, and, covered by the ill-humored noise, Wu clicked his revolver open.

They sat and faced each other in ugly silence, dislike and defiance very differently expressed, but expressed, on each face. Even wider apart by caste and by breeding than by race, Wu's tranquillity was terrible, his quiet at once a menace and a taunt, while Gregory's growing nervousness would have been a little comical if its primary cause had not been so pitiful.

"I perceive, Mr. Gregory," Wu Li Chang said pleasantly, "that you still keep your toy in your hand; kindly cease holding it. I do not fear it, but the implication of its presence is somewhat aggressive and offensive. Let us pretend, at least," he added lazily, "that we are gentlemen."

That taunt got through. Gregory winced, and after a moment of sulky hesitation put the revolver on his knee under the desk.

"Now then, Mr. Wu" he began.

"One moment," Wu interrupted him. "Excuse my