heir earnings in the State Lotteries as to the numbers that
might be relied upon to be successful, or, if not actually successful,
those at least that were not already predestined by malign influences
to be absolutely incapable of success. These chances Wang Ho at first
forecast by means of dreams, portents and other manifestations of an
admittedly supernatural tendency, but as his name grew large and the
number of his clients increased vastly, while his capacity for
dreaming remained the same, he found it no less effective to close his
eyes and to become inspired rapidly of numbers as they were thus
revealed to him.

Occasionally Wang Ho was the recipient of an appropriate bag of money
from one who had profited by his advice, but it was not his custom to
rely upon this contingency as a source of income, nor did he in any
eventuality return the amount which had been agreed upon (and
invariably deposited with him in advance) as the reward of his
inspired efforts. To those who sought him in a contentious spirit,
inquiring why he did not find it more profitable to secure the prizes
for himself, Wang Ho replied that his enterprise consisted in
forecasting the winning numbers for State Lotteries and not in solving
enigmas, writing deprecatory odes, composing epitaphs or conducting
any of the other numerous occupations that could be mentioned. As this
plausible evasion was accompanied by the courteous display of the many
weapons which he always wore at different convenient points of his
attire, the incident invariably ended in a manner satisfactory to Wang
Ho.

Thus positioned Wang Ho prospered, and had in the course of years
acquired a waist of honourable proportions, when the unrolling course
of events influenced him to abandon his lucrative enterprise. It was
not that he failed in any way to become as inspired as before; indeed,
with increasing practice he attained a fluency that enabled him to
outdistance every rival, so that on the occasion of one lottery he
afterwards privately discovered that he had predicted the success of
every possible combination of numbers, thus enabling those who followed
his advice (as he did not fail to announce in inscriptions of
vermilion assurance) to secure--among them--every variety of prize
offered.

But, about this time, the chief wife of Wang Ho having been greeted
with amiable condescension by the chief wife of a high official of the
Province, and therefrom in an almost equal manne