ndron approached. There was still the flavor of the old politeness
in his speech, although the flowery beauty of half a century before had
disappeared.

"Good morning, venerable sir; may I be of some assistance?"

Candron kept the old usages. "This old one would be greatly honored if
your excellent hostelry could find a small corner for the rest of his
unworthy body," he said in excellent Cantonese.

"It is possible, aged one, that this miserable hovel may provide some
space, unsuited though it may be to your honored presence," said the
clerk, reverting as best he could to the language of a generation
before. "For how many people would you require accommodations?"

"For my humble self only," Candron said.

"It can, I think, be done," said the clerk, giving him a pleasant smile.
Then his face took on an expression of contrition. "I hope, venerable
one, that you will not think this miserable creature too bold if he asks
for your papers?"

"Not at all," said Candron, taking a billfold from his inside coat
pocket. "Such is the law, and the law of the People of China is to be
always respected."

He opened the billfold and spread the papers for the clerk's inspection.
They were all there--identification, travel papers, everything. The
clerk looked them over and jotted down the numbers in the register book
on the desk, then turned the book around. "Your chop, venerable one."

The "chop" was a small stamp bearing the ideograph which indicated the
name Candron was using. Illiteracy still ran high in China because of
the difficulty in memorizing the tens of thousands of ideographs which
made up the written language, so each man carried a chop to imprint his
name. Officially, China used the alphabet, spelling out the Chinese
words phonetically--and, significantly, they had chosen the Latin
alphabet of the Western nations rather than the Cyrillic of the Soviets.
But old usages die hard.

Candron imprinted the ideograph on the page, then, beside it, he wrote
"Ying Lee" in Latin characters.

The clerk's respect for this old man went up a degree. He had expected
to have to put down the Latin characters himself. "Our humble
establishment is honored by your esteemed presence, Mr. Ying," he said.
"For how long will it be your pleasure to bestow this honor upon us?"

"My poor business, unimportant though it is, will require it least one
week; at the most, ten days." Candron said, knowing full well that
twenty-four hours would