from thirty to fifty.

"What nonsense you're talking!" she then exclaimed. "Those people are
all divines, and where could they have rummaged up these things? But
what need is there for any such presents? He may, on no account, accept
them."

"These are intended as a small token of their esteem," responded Chang,
the Taoist, smiling, "your servant cannot therefore venture to interfere
with them. If your venerable ladyship will not keep them, won't you make
it patent to them that I'm treated contemptuously, and unlike what one
should be, who has joined the order through your household?"

Only when old lady Chia heard these arguments did she direct a servant
to receive the presents.

"Venerable senior," Pao-yue smilingly chimed in. "After the reasons
advanced by grandfather Chang, we cannot possibly refuse them. But
albeit I feel disposed to keep these things, they are of no avail to me;
so would it not be well were a servant told to carry the tray and to
follow me out of doors, that I may distribute them to the poor?

"You are perfectly right in what you say!" smiled dowager lady Chia.

The Taoist Chang, however, went on speedily to use various arguments to
dissuade him. "Mr. Pao," he observed, "your intention is, it is true, to
perform charitable acts; but though you may aver that these things are
of little value, you'll nevertheless find among them several articles
you might turn to some account. Were you to let the beggars have them,
why they will, first of all, be none the better for them; and, next, it