shopkeepers--they much prefer to look on, and laugh,
and bargain). In this and other emporiums of the same class were to be
found rare embroideries, ivory carvings, eggshell china, Oriental
draperies, jade, and piles of Chinese and Japanese silks of the most
exquisite fabric and colour. Sophy liked to wander round, to marvel
and admire, but soon discovered that to do the latter was to be
immediately endowed with her fancy--be it an enormous Chinese jar, or a
lacquered cabinet, or a mere silver bowl. Mrs. Krauss firmly resisted
every denial and excuse.

"My dear," she would protest, "do not refuse me; mine is the pleasure.
I don't know how to spend all my money, and never until now have I had
a girl to whom I could offer presents--and to _give_ is such a joy. I
am a rich woman, with no belongings except you and yours. Certainly, I
don't deny that this big gong" (the present in question) "is rather a
clumsy affair, but it is old and a beauty. What a deep, rich,
melancholy tone! When struck it seems to tell of some sad, sad story
that happened hundreds of years ago. After you are married, dear
child, it will be so useful in your hall."

On these excursions there was one little shop that was never neglected
or overlooked; this was situated in a narrow slum, a long way from the
great artery of traffic and fashion. After negotiating various
tortuous windings and encountering horrible gusts of stale _napie_ and
the ever-odorous _dorian_, the car halted at a certain corner, and Mrs.
Krauss and her companion made their way into a narrow ill-lit lane, and
entered a mean den kept by a fat, crafty-looking Chinaman and his lean,
pock-marked son. There was, as far as Sophy could discern, nothing
whatever to interest or attract upon the premises. The stock was
ordinary and scanty; a few coarse china tea-sets, some teapots in cane
baskets, paper fans, lacquer trays and odds and ends of the cheapest
rubbish; but Mrs. Krauss solemnly assured her niece that "it was the
_only_ place in Rangoon for the real guaranteed netsukes," of which she
was making a collection.

A Japanese netsuke is an elaborately-carved ivory button of various
shapes and sizes--no two are alike; they take the form of men or
animals and, as a rule, are executed with amazing delicacy, and, if
signed and old, are of considerable value.

Mrs. Krauss, who spoke a little Chinese--and was proud of her
accomplishment--appeared to know the fat proprietor rather