extreme, he said, the amount which they would be required to pay would
be two hundred and fifty thousand taels; but this was in reality a
very misleading view of the circumstance, as he would endeavour to
show them. For one detail, he had allotted to Ling thirty years of
existence, which was the extreme amount according to the calculations
of those skilled in such prophecies; but, as they were all undoubtedly
aware, persons of very expert intellects were known to enjoy a much
shorter period of life than the gross and ordinary, and as Ling was
clearly one of the former, by the fact of his contriving so ingenious
a method of enriching himself, they might with reasonable foresight
rely upon his departing when half the period had been attained; in
that way seventy-five thousand taels would be restored to them, for
every year represented a saving of five thousand. Another agreeable
contemplation was that of the last sum, for by such a time they would
have arrived at the most pleasurable part of the enterprise: a million
taels' worth of pure gold would be displayed before them, and the
question of the final fifty thousand could be disposed of by cutting
off an arm or half a leg. Whether they adopted that course, or decided
to increase their fortunes by exposing so exceptional and symmetrical
a wonder to the public gaze in all the principal cities of the Empire,
was a circumstance which would have to be examined within their minds
when the time approached. In such a way the detail of purchase stood
revealed as only fifty thousand taels in reality, a sum so despicably
insignificant that he had internal pains at mentioning it to so
wealthy a group of Mandarins, and he had not yet made clear to them
that each year they would receive gold to the amount of almost a
thousand taels. This would be the result of Ling making smooth his
surfaces, and it would enable them to know that the person in question
actually existed, and to keep the circumstances before their
intellects.