"It strikes you, doesn't it?" asked Fitzgibbon, in the tones of a
gratified showman. "It always does strike people who haven't seen it
before."

"Naturally, when one has not seen it before," echoed his companion, as
the car drew up.

Coryndon stood for a moment looking at the entrance, and surveying the
huge plaster dragons with their gaping mouths and vermilion-red tongues.
They were ranged up a green slope, two on either side of the brown
fretted roof that covered the steep tunnel that led up a flight of more
than a hundred steps to the flat plateau, where the golden spire towered
high over all, amid a crowd of lesser minarets.

Surrounded by baskets of roses and orchids, little silk-clothed Burmese
girls sat on the entrance steps, and sold their wares. Fitzgibbon would
have hurried on, but Coryndon, in true tripper fashion, stopped and
bought an armful of blossoms.

"What am I to do with these things?" he asked helplessly.

"Oh, you'd better leave them before one of the _Gaudamas_, and acquire
merit. If you let them all plunder you like this, we'll never get to the
top."

Flight after flight, the two men climbed slowly, and Coryndon stood at
intervals to watch the crowd that came up and down. The steps were so
steep that the arch above them only disclosed descending feet, but
Coryndon watched the feet appear first and then the rest of the hurrying