eigh your labours!" exclaimed Wong Ts'in in a
two-edged voice, and he departed.

When he reached his own house he would have closed himself in his own
chamber with himself had not Wei Chang persisted that he sought his
master's inner ear with a heavy project. This interruption did not
please Wong Ts'in, for he had begun to recognize the day as being
unlucky, yet Chang succeeded by a device in reaching his side, bearing
in his hands a guarded burden.

Though no written record of this memorable interview exists, it is now
generally admitted that Wei Chang either involved himself in an
unbearably attenuated caution before he would reveal his errand, or
else that he made a definite allusion to Fa Fai with a too sudden
conciseness, for the slaves who stood without heard Wong Ts'in clear
his voice of all restraint and express himself freely on a variety of
subjects. But this gave place to a subdued murmur, ending with the
ceremonial breaking of a plate, and later Wong Ts'in beat on a silver
bell and called for wine and fruit.

The next day Fang presented himself a few gong-strokes later than the
appointed time, and being met by an unbending word he withdrew the
labour of those whom he controlled. Thenceforth these men, providing
themselves with knives and axes, surrounded the gate of the
earth-yards and by the pacific argument of their attitudes succeeded
in persuading others who would willingly have continued at their task
that the air of Wong Ts'in's sheds was not congenial to their health.
Towards Wei Chang, whose efforts they despised, they raised a cloud of
derision, and presently noticing that henceforth he invariably clad
himself in lower garments of a dark blue material (to a set purpose
that will be as crystal to the sagacious), they greeted his appearance
with cries of: "Behold the sombre one! Thou dark leg!" so that this
reproach continues to be hurled even to this day at those in a like
case, though few could answer why.

Long before the stipulated time the tenscore plates were delivered to
Hien Nan. So greatly were they esteemed, both on account of their
accuracy of unvarying detail and the ingenuity of their novel
embellishment, that orders for scores, hundreds and even thousands
began to arrive from all quarters of the Empire. The clay enterprise
of Wong Ts'in took upon itself an added lustre, and in order to deal
adequately with so vast an undertaking the grateful merchant adopted
Wei Chang and placed him