not your discriminating footsteps to pause before that house, O
father of my father! Now had you spoken of Golden Eyebrows, daughter
of Kuo Wang--"

"It would be as well to open a paper umbrella in a thunderstorm as to
seek profit from an alliance with Kuo Wang. Crafty and ambitious, he
is already deep in questionable ventures, and high as he carries his
head at present, there will assuredly come a day when Kuo Wang will
appear in public with his feet held even higher than his crown."

"The rod!" exclaimed Chang Tao in astonishment. "Can it really be that
one who is so invariably polite to me is not in every way immaculate?"

"Either bamboo will greet his feet or hemp adorn his neck," persisted
the other, with a significant movement of his hands in the proximity
of his throat. "Walk backwards in the direction of that house, son of
my son. Is there not one Ning of the worthy line of Lo, dwelling
beneath the emblem of a Sprouting Aloe?"

"Truly," agreed the youth, "but at an early age she came under the
malign influence of a spectral vampire, and in order to deceive the
creature she was adopted to the navigable portion of the river here,
and being announced as having Passed Above was henceforth regarded as
a red mullet."

"Yet in what detail does that deter you?" inquired Chang, for the
nature of his grandson's expression betrayed an acute absence of
enthusiasm towards the maiden thus concerned.

"Perchance the vampire was not deceived after all. In any case this
person dislikes red mullet," replied the youth indifferently.

The venerable shook his head reprovingly.

"It is imprudent to be fanciful in matters of business," he remarked.
"Lo Chiu, her father, is certainly the possessor of many bars of
silver, and, as it is truly written: 'With wealth one may command
demons; without it one cannot summon even a slave.'"

"It is also said: 'When the tree is full the doubtful fruit remains
upon the branch,'" retorted Chang Tao. "Are not maidens in this city
as the sand upon a broad seashore? If one opens and closes one's hands
suddenly out in the Ways on a dark night, the chances are that three
or four will be grasped. A stone cast at a venture--"

"Peace!" interrupted the elder. "Witless spoke thus even in the days
of this person's remote youth--only the virtuous did not then open and
close their hands suddenly in the Ways on dark nights. Is aught
reported of the inner affairs of Shen Yi, a rich philosopher who
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