citurnity.
Whatever his experiences, no word would he speak concerning them--he
preserved a rigid silence. Something had been broken in the old man,
there beyond the seas, and whatever had befallen him was abhorrent and
unspeakable. He seemed very much older, very much more frail, and his
thin, fine hands were always trembling in a manner unaccustomed. Young
Withers was in distress, for Li's distress was so obvious, his
singular reticence making him suffer still more.

"Those thugs in San Francisco must have cleaned out the old fellow
first day on shore," he concluded, and then thought no more about it.
It was pitiful to see the old man, however, pitiful to watch him going
about his duties with the recollection of his terrible days in the New
World undermining his spirits and vitality. The secret, whatever it
was that had befallen him, was sapping his frail strength. Only on one
occasion, several months later, did he bring up the subject. He
appeared suddenly before Withers' desk one day, and there was an angry
gleam in his spectacled eyes.

"Your uncle never let me go America. Twenty years with your uncle.
Very good man. Never can go." He turned away abruptly.

"By Jove," thought young Withers to himself, "the old chap's holding
me responsible. Blaming it all on me. I like that!" and he laughed a
little, uneasily. These Chinese were queer ones. You never knew how
they stood.

The firm of Withers, Ltd. was very busy. Every week or so ships came
into the harbour with boxes and bales of European merchandise of a
rather shoddy kind, intended for the markets of North China. And there
was much business in transferring these boxes and bales to the big
godowns, with their heavy iron doors and windows, in checking them up,
sorting them out--in short, all the sort of activity that goes with a
firm of importers, such as this one. Also there was much business in
distributing these boxes and bales, or rather the contents thereof, to
the railway station, for shipment to Peking and to remote provinces in
the north and west. In Peking, these shoddy goods were made into
smaller bales, and laden on camels, for some far off, remote
destination in the interior. This took Withers frequently to Peking,
leaving old Li in charge of the godowns in Tientsin. Withers always
took charge of this end of the business, because of the opportunity it
offered to get away from daily contact with his old compradore.
Somehow, he felt rather uneasy in