ity--the
translucent deep apple-green. He never carried it about; he never even
spoke of it unless he was sure that the prospective customer was wealthy.

His safe was in a corner of his workshop. An American yegg would have
laughed at it, opened it as easily as a ripe peach; but in this district
it was absolute security. Ling Foo was obliged to keep a safe, for often
he had valuable pearls to take care of, sometimes to put new vigour in
dying lustre, sometimes to peel a pearl on the chance that under the dull
skin lay the gem.

He trotted to the front door and locked it; then he trotted into his
workshop, planning. If the glass beads were worth five hundred, wasn't it
likely they would be worth a thousand? If this man who limped had stuck to
the hundred Ling Foo knew that he would have surrendered eventually. But
the ease with which the stranger made the jump from one to five convinced
Ling Foo that there could be no harm in boosting five to ten. If there was
a taint of crookedness anywhere, that would be on the other side. Ling Foo
knew where the beads were, and he would transfer them for one thousand
gold. Smart business, nothing more than that. He had the whip hand.

Out of his safe he took a blackwood box, beautifully carved, Cantonese.
Headbands, earrings, rings, charms, necklaces, tomb ornaments, some of
them royal, all of them nearly as ancient as the hills of Kwanlun, from
which most of them had been quarried--jade. He trickled them from palm to
palm and one by one returned the objects to the box. In the end he
retained two strings of beads so alike that it was difficult to discern
any difference. One was Kwanlun jade, royal loot; the other was a copy in
Nanshan stone. The first was priceless, worth what any fool collector was
ready to pay; the copy was worth perhaps a hundred gold. Held to the
light, there was a subtle difference; but only an expert could have told
you what this difference was. The royal jade did not catch the light so
strongly as the copy; the touch of human warmth had slightly dulled the
stone.

Ling Foo transferred the copy to a purse he wore attached to his belt
under the blue jacket. The young woman would never be able to resist the
jade. She would return the glass instantly. A thousand gold, less the cost
of the jade! Good business!

But for once his Oriental astuteness overreached, as has been seen. And to
add to his discomfiture, he never again saw the copy of the Kwanlun,
represe