n stealthily, looking around him.

"Aye, I am back. Having done the business."

Curiosity leapt into the eyes of the Chinaman, and he dropped his
attitude of contempt.

"What business?" he asked greedily. "Before thy departure thou wast
mute, stricken as a dumb man, neither wouldst thou speak in response to
any question."

The Burman curled himself up on the floor and smiled complaisantly.

"None the less, the business is done, O Bowl of Ghee, and I have
returned."

The assistant ignored the personal description, and adopted a manner
calculated to ingratiate himself into the friendly confidence of the mad
Burman. He wriggled off the table and crouched on the floor a few inches
off Coryndon's face, and the contact being too close for human
endurance, Coryndon threw himself back into the corner and retired
behind a mask of cunning obstinacy.

"Thy business, thy business," repeated the boy. "Was it in the nature of
the evil works of the bad man, thy friend?" He leered his encouragement,
and fumbling at his belt took out a small coin. "Here, I will give thee
two annas if thou tell the whole story to my liking."

The Burman shook his head, but he appeared to be considering the offer
slowly in his obtuse and stagnant brain.

"Give the money into mine own hand, that the reward be sure," he said,
as though he toyed with the idea.

"Not so," replied the boy. "First the boiled rice and the salt, and
afterwards the payment. Thus is the way in honest dealings."

The Burman shut his mouth tightly and exhibited signs of a return to his
former condition of dumbness that worked upon the assistant like gall.

"Then, if nothing less will content thee, take thy money," he said in
frothy anger. "Take it and speak low, for it may be that eavesdroppers
are without in the street."

He dropped the coin into the outstretched palm, but the Burman did not
begin his story. He got up and searched behind boxes and shook the rows
of hanging garments. He was so secret and silent that the boy became
exasperated and closed the narrow door into the street with a bang,
pulling across a heavy chain.

"Let that content thee," he said irritably, chafing under the delay, and
sitting down, a frowsy, horrible object, in the dim corner, he prepared
to enjoy a further description out of the wild fantastic terrors of the
madman's brain.

Surprise does not hover; its coming events are shadowless, and its
spring is the spring of a tiger out of the