s details I laid obsequiously before the one who had
commanded it, while the others stood around either in explicit silence
or speaking softly beneath their breath.

"Do I understand that the two persons left all these things with you,
while they took your purse in exchange?" said the high official, after
examining certain obscure signs upon the metals, the contents of the
third scrip, and the like.

"It cannot reasonably be denied," I replied; "inasmuch as they departed
without them."

"Spontaneously?" he demanded, and in spite of the unevadible severity of
his voice the expression of his nearer eye deviated somewhat.

"The spoken and conclusive word of the first was that it was his
intention to commit to this one's keeping everything which he had; the
assertion of the second being that with this scrip I received all that
he possessed."

"While of yours, what did they get, Mr. Quack?" and the tone of the one
who spoke had a much more gratifying modulation than before, while the
attitudes of those who stood around had favourably changed, until they
now conveyed a message of deliberate esteem.

"A serpent-skin case of two enclosures," I replied. "On the one side
was a handcount of the small copper-pieces of this Island, which I had
caused to be burnished and gilt for the purpose of taking back to amuse
those of Yuen-ping. On the other side were two or three pages from a
gravity-removing printed leaf entitled 'Bits of Tits,' with which
this person weekly instructs himself in the simpler rudiments of the
language. For the rest the case was controlled by a hidden spring, and
inscribed about with a charm against loss, consumption by fire, or being
secretly acquired by the unworthy."

"I don't think you stand in much need of that charm, Mr. Quack,"
remarked another of more than ordinary rank, who was also present. "Then
they really got practically no money from you?"

"By no means," I admitted. "It was never literally stipulated, and
whatever of wealth he possesses this person carries in a concealed spot
beneath his waistbelt." (For even to these, virtuous sire, I did not
deem it expedient to reveal the fact that in reality it is hidden within
the sole of my left sandal.)

"I congratulate you," he said with lavish refinement. "Ben and the
Butterman can be very bland and persuasive. Could you tell me, as a
matter of professional curiosity, what first put you on your guard?"

"In this person's country," I replied, "