circumstances of the future required, yet his manner of life for the
past years was not such that he could contemplate engaging in the
occupation of buying and selling porcelain clay with feelings of an
overwhelming interest. Quang, however, maintained with every
manifestation of inspired assurance that Yat Huang was to be commended
down to the smallest detail, inasmuch as proficiency in the use of
both blunt and sharp-edged weapons, and a faculty for passing
undetected through the midst of an encamped body of foemen, fitted a
person for the every-day affairs of life above all other
accomplishments.

"Without doubt the very accomplished Yat Huan is well advised on this
point," continued Quang, "for even this mentally short-sighted person
can call up within his understanding numerous specific incidents in
the ordinary career of one engaged in the commerce of porcelain clay
when such attainments would be of great remunerative benefit. Does the
well-endowed Yin think, for example, that even the most depraved
person would endeavour to gain an advantage over him in the matter of
buying or selling porcelain clay if he fully understood the fact that
the one with whom he was trafficking could unhesitatingly transfix
four persons with one arrow at the distance of a hundred paces? Or to
what advantage would it be that a body of unscrupulous outcasts who
owned a field of inferior clay should surround it with drawn swords by
day and night, endeavouring meanwhile to dispose of it as material of
the finest quality, if the one whom they endeavoured to ensnare in
this manner possessed the power of being able to pass through their
ranks unseen and examine the clay at his leisure?"

"In the cases to which reference has been made, the possession of
those qualities would undoubtedly be of considerable use," admitted