flat-faced, slant-eyed, top-side-under, pig-tailed old heathen, I
should be really annoyed at your unwarrantable personalities. Do you
take ME for what you call a 'native money-lender'?"

The pronouncements of destiny are written in iron," I replied
inoffensively, "and it is as truly said that one fated to end his life
in a cave cannot live for ever on the top of a pagoda. Undoubtedly as
one born and residing here you are native, and as inexorably it
succeeds that if you lend me pieces of gold you become a money-lender.
Therefore, though honourably inspired at the first, you would equally
be drawn into the entanglement of circumstance, and the unevadible end
must inevitably be that against which your printed papers consistently
warn one."

"And what is that?" asked Beveledge Greyson, still regarding me
closely, as though I were a creature of another part.

"At first," I replied, "there would be an alluring snare of graceful
words, tea, and the consuming of paper-rolled herbs, and the matter
would be lightly spoken of as capable of an easy adjustment; which,
indeed, it cannot be denied, is how the detail stands at present. The
next position would be that this person, finding himself unable to
gather together the equivalent of return within the stated time, would
greet you with a very supple neck and pray for a further extension,
which would be permitted on the understanding that in the event of
failure his garments and personal charms should be held in bondage. To
escape so humiliating a necessity, as the time drew near I would
address myself to another, one calling himself William, perchance, and
dwelling in a northern province, to whom I would be compelled to
assign my peach-orchard at Yuen-ping. Then by varying degrees of