Page:Weird Tales Volume 36 Number 11 (1943-05).djvu/32

 but he avoided looking in mirrors. He resented the fact that Doctor Shen Fu was so very tall, he hated to have the Doctor towering over him as he sipped his tea. He found it unpalatable.

"The tea is bitter," he said fretfully.

"Unfortunately, for years we, of China, have been drinking only bitter tea."

"Our Japanese tea is fragrant."

"Drink of it well, while you have the opportunity."

"It is ill-advised for the conquered to threaten."

"Why threaten? I might have poisoned the tea had I so desired."

R. NISHIKORI had a bad moment but he did not show it. "I hope you did not," he said, "I am too important to my nation to die."

"That is debatable. However, you were served naught but bitter tea. I cannot be untrue to business tradition. It, is bad form to murder one's customers."

"A customer, yes, and one who can pay well."

"With what?"

"Chinese money."

"I cannot accept money that has blood on it. Rather pay me in rice."

"It would be unwise. You might feed it to the poor. Starving people are more easily overcome. They have little opposition in them. Our new order in East Asia must be established."

"By undernourishment."

"I am General Nishikori. I will not be defied. My word is supreme law in Hangchow. You can be of service to my soldiers. And I repeat you will be well-paid."

"For treachery."

"No, for certain drugs that I need."

"Then you must pay in rice."

"Should I hand you over to a firing squad?"

"It matters little. I have solved the riddle of immortality. Your bullets could do no more that wound me severely. But in time I would recover. However, I do not presume to decide such weighty problems for you. Though if I am shot, your chances of getting drugs are nil. Speak quickly, I have other customers entering the shop."

"Throw them out!" the general stormed.

"No, their wishes shall be attended to while you finish your tea." As he spoke, Doctor Shen Fu turned and walked over to greet tine newcomers. Usually he left the tending of shop to clerks well-versed in the intricacies of the pharmacopia, but not now, for he wanted to.throw Nishikori's pomp in his face. For a thousand years Shen Fu's ancestors had ruled over this drug shop with its large areas of ground that were used for warehouses, clerk's homes and gardens, besides a considerable reserve for the herd of deer whose horns were ground up to make important and popular medicines.

A rich man was desirous of purchasing ginseng tonic, one of the most expensive preparations in all the world for ginseng is the medicine par excellence, the when all drugs fail. A few drops of ginseng will raise the dead to life. And it is even whispered that after three centuries the ginseng root changes into a man with white blood.

Doctor Shen Fu measured out the lifegiving fluid with reverence though he knew that as a restorative it was somewhat overrated. The drug was about forty percent tonic and sixty percent folklore and legend, still it was worth ten times its weight in pure gold and so not to be handled carelessly.

A coolie wanted some powdered dragon's bones to reduce his child's fever. Dr. Shen Fu made no charge to the poor man but added the cost to the sum for the ginseng, since the rich man was better able to pay.

Before returning to General Nishikori,