o
discuss the movements of the planets or the sublime Emperor's health.
Behold, for half-a-tael of silver you may purchase immunity from his
discreditable persistence for seven days; here is the acknowledgement
duly made out and attested. Let the payment be made in pieces of metal
and not in paper obligations." Unless immediate compliance followed Ho
at once began noisily to cast down the articles of commerce, to roll
bodily upon the more fragile objects, to become demoniacally possessed
on the floor, and to resort to a variety of expedients until all the
customers were driven forth in panic.

In the case of an excessively stubborn merchant he had not hesitated
to draw a formidable knife and to gash himself in a superficial but
very imposing manner; then he had rushed out uttering cries of terror,
and sinking down by the door had remained there for the greater part
of the day, warning those who would have entered to be upon their
guard against being enticed in and murdered, at the same time groaning
aloud and displaying his own wounds. Even this seeming disregard of
time was well considered, for when the tidings spread about the city
other merchants did not wait for Ho to enter and greet them, but
standing at their doors money in hand they pressed it upon him the
moment he appeared and besought him to remove his distinguished
presence from their plague-infected street. To the ordinary mendicants
of the city this stress of competition was disastrous, but to Yuen Yan
it was overwhelming. Thoroughly imbued with the deferential systems of
antiquity, he led his band from place to place with a fitting regard
for the requirements of ceremonial etiquette and a due observance of
leisurely unconcern. Those to whom he addressed himself he approached
with obsequious tact, and in the face of refusal to contribute to his
store his most violent expedient did not go beyond marshalling his
company of suppliants in an orderly group upon the shop floor, where
they sang in unison a composed chant extolling the fruits of
munificence and setting forth the evil plight which would certainly
attend the flinty-stomached in the Upper Air. In this way Yuen Yan had
been content to devote several hours to a single shop in the hope of
receiving finally a few pieces of brass money; but now his
persecutions were so mild that the merchants and vendors rather
welcomed him by comparison with the intolerable Ho, and would on no
account pay to be relieved