e tall preacher, questioned him
concerning the new faith. The last, a broad, misshapen fellow with
hanging jowls, was answered sharply. He stood arguing, received another
snub, and went out bawling and threatening, with the contorted face and
clumsy flourishes of some fabulous hero on a screen.

The missionary approached smiling, but like a man who has finished the
day's work.

"That fellow--Good-evening: and welcome to our Street Chapel, Mr.
Hackh--That fellow," he glanced after the retreating figure, "he's a
lesson in perseverance, gentlemen. A merchant, well-to-do: he has a
lawsuit coming on--notorious--and tries to join us for protection.
Cheaper to buy a little belief, you know, than to pay Yamen fines.
Every night he turns up, grinning and bland. I tell him it won't do, and
out he goes, snorting like a dragon."

Rudolph's impulse came to a head.

"Dr. Earle," he stammered, "I owe you a gratitude. You spoke to these
people so--as--I do not know. But I listened, I felt--Before always are
they devils, images! And after I hear you, they are as men."

The other shook his great head like a silver mane, and laughed.

"My dear young man," he replied, "they're remarkably like you and me."

After a pause, he added soberly:--

"Images? Yes, you're right, sir. So was Adam. The same clay, the same
image." His deep voice altered, his eyes lighted shrewdly, as he turned
to Heywood. "This is an unexpected pleasure."

"Quite," said the young man, readily. "If you don't mind, padre, you
made Number One talk. Fast bowling, and no wides. But we really came for
something else." In a few brief sentences, he pictured the death in the
shop.--So, like winking! The beggar gave himself the iron, fell down,
and made finish. Now what I pieced out, from his own bukhing, and the
merchant's, was this:--

"The dead man was one Au-yoeng, a cormorant-fisher. Some of his best
birds died, he had a long run of bad luck, and came near starving. So he
contrived, rather cleverly, to steal about a hundred catties of Fuh-kien
hemp. The owner, this merchant, went to the elders of Au-yoeng's
neighborhood, who found and restored the hemp, nearly all. Merchant lets
the matter drop. But the neighbors kept after this cormorant fellow,
worked one beastly squeeze or another, ingenious baiting, devilish--Rot!
you know their neighborhoods better than I! Well, they pushed him
down-hill--poor devil, showing that's always possible, no bottom! He
brooded, an