" he remarked to
Kai Lung. "It will be a distinguished privilege for a person occupying
the important public position which you undoubtedly do; for myself,
my instincts are so degraded and low-minded that nothing gives me more
gratification than to dispense with ceremony."

To this Kai Lung made no reply, chiefly because at that moment the wind
swayed the tree, and compelled him to stand on his toes in order to
escape suffocation.

"It would be useless to try to conceal from a person of your inspired
intelligence that I am indeed Lin Yi," continued the robber. "It is a
dignified position to occupy, and one for which I am quite incompetent.
In the sixth month of the third year ago, it chanced that this unworthy
person, at that time engaged in commercial affairs at Knei Yang, became
inextricably immersed in the insidious delights of quail-fighting.
Having been entrusted with a large number of taels with which to
purchase elephants' teeth, it suddenly occurred to him that if he
doubled the number of taels by staking them upon an exceedingly powerful
and agile quail, he would be able to purchase twice the number of teeth,
and so benefit his patron to a large extent. This matter was clearly
forced upon his notice by a dream, in which he perceived one whom he
then understood to be the benevolent spirit of an ancestor in the act
of stroking a particular quail, upon whose chances he accordingly
placed all he possessed. Doubtless evil spirits had been employed in the
matter; for, to this person's great astonishment, the quail in question
failed in a very discreditable manner at the encounter. Unfortunately,
this person had risked not only the money which had been entrusted to
him, but all that he had himself become possessed of by some years of
honourable toil and assiduous courtesy as a professional witness in
law cases. Not doubting that his patron would see that he was himself
greatly to blame in confiding so large a sum of money to a comparatively
young man of whom he knew little, this person placed the matter before
him, at the same time showing him that he would suffer in the eyes of
the virtuous if he did not restore this person's savings, which but for
the presence of the larger sum, and a generous desire to benefit his
patron, he would never have risked in so uncertain a venture as that of
quail-fighting. Although the facts were laid in the form of a dignified
request instead of a demand by legal means, and the reasoni