Page:Weird Tales Volume 36 Number 12 (1943-07).djvu/23

 "I am General Yoshida," said the little man curtly.

"You wish me to make you a new face?" asked the doctor gently. His manner was too abrupt to please Yoshida but after all one glance at him was sufficient to suggest his mission.

"If you are Doctor Fang Kan."

"You have come to the right place. What kind of a face would you like to have? Evil I suppose."

"Do you want your shop destroyed?" cried the general.

"In that case," was the tranquil reply, "what a pity it will be that you will have to pursue conquests with a destroyed face."

"There are other doctors."

"Plenty, famed for acupuncture, and the intricacies of the pulse; to dispel a fever, or to prepare tonics but, alas, in the entire province I alone meddle with faces. When a great man loses 'face' he comes to me I can remove blemishes of every kind but not the eternal blemish of oppression. At the time of the Chin Dynasty, at about the time the Great Wall was completed, one of my ancestors of reverred memory was known as 'The Doctor of Lip Repair.' It was one of the earliest recorded operations in the medium which our American comrades in arms speak of as 'Plastic Surgery.' Even then, vanity was rampant and my illustrious ancestor amassed a considerable fortune. His healing art, he taught to his son, who taught it to his eldest son and so on down through the centuries. And every son was named Fang Kan. I am fortunate to have been the recipient of this elegant heritage. Frequently we have had doctors in China whose sole claim to knowledge has been that they could wield a pen, for po special medical training was necessary for them to go about among the sick. It is because of them that we have such sayings as: 'To take no medicine is the best cure' and 'Medicine does not kill, the physician kills.' However, in the days of the Chou and Chin Dynasties medicine attained a high degree of development and doctors were superior men. So also have been the long line of 'Lip Repairers' who are known as Fang Kan."

"Very interesting!" spat out Yoshida, "but of what interest is that to me?"

"Certainly, to you of all people, my qualifications as a physician should be of prime importance. However, I should add, that the good surgeon first cures the ills of the nation, then human ailments."

"You mean China must be healed of her wounds before you will help me?" There was little bombast in the general's tone now.

"It's an interesting kernel to chew on, but I will not hold you to it even though the urge to do so is great. But that, too, will come when the dragons that guard our earth and sleep under our mountains grow weary of this war and spew out all invaders wherever they lie festering."

Doctor Fang Kan was in an amiable mood. He closed his eyes so that no single glitter of his thoughts might shine through them. Yes, it would indeed be a great moment for him when Yoshida lay at the mercy of his knife. If the knife took matters into its own hands and snuffed out a despicable, arrogant life, the air of China would have a whiff of garden freshness. Fang Kan's garden was small but he seldom slept without walking in it for awhile before retiring. That night the chrysanthemums would report to him that all was well.

ENERAL YOSHIDA had the sudden fear that the operation might never be performed, that at the last moment Fang Kan might decline the honor that was offered to him.

However, his fears were allayed when the doctor began speaking once more. "There was an occasion when a man came to me who had the appearance of a wolf.