In particular, among those whom Yan regarded most objectionably was one named Ho.  Although only recently arrived in the city from a country beyond the Bitter Water, Ho was already known in every quarter both to the merchants and stallkeepers, who trembled at his approaching shadow, and to the competing mendicants who now counted their cash with two fingers where they had before needed both hands.  This distressingly active person made no secret of his methods and intention; for, upon his arrival, he plainly announced that his object was to make the foundations of benevolence vibrate like the strings of a many-toned lute, and he compared his general progress through the haunts of the charitably disposed to the passage of a highly-charged firework through an assembly of meditative turtles.  He was usually known, he added, as “the rapidly-moving person,” or “the one devoid of outline,” and it soon became apparent that he was also quite destitute of all dignified restraint.  Selecting the place of commerce of some wealthy merchant, Ho entered without hesitation and thrusting aside the waiting customers he continued to strike the boards impatiently until he gained the attention of the chief merchant himself.  “Honourable salutations,” he would say, “but do not entreat this illiterate person to enter the inner room, for he cannot tarry to discuss the movements of the planets or the sublime Emperor’s health.  Behold, for half-a-tael of silver you may purchase immunity from his discreditable persistence for seven days; here is the acknowledgement duly made out and attested.  Let the payment be made in pieces of metal and not in paper obligations.”  Unless immediate compliance followed Ho at once began noisily to cast down the articles of commerce, to roll bodily upon the more fragile objects, to become demoniacally possessed on the floor, and to resort to a variety of expedients until all the customers were driven forth in panic.

In the case of an excessively stubborn merchant he had not hesitated to draw a formidable knife and to gash himself in a superficial but very imposing manner; then he had rushed out uttering cries of terror, and sinking down by the door had remained there for the greater part of the day, warning those who would have entered to be upon their guard against being enticed in and murdered, at the same time groaning aloud and displaying his own wounds.  Even this seeming disregard of time was well considered, for when the tidings spread about the city other merchants did not wait for Ho to enter and greet them, but standing at their doors money in hand they pressed it upon him the moment he appeared and besought him to remove his distinguished presence from their plague-infected street.  To the ordinary mendicants of the city this stress of competition was disastrous, but to Yuen Yan it was overwhelming.  Thoroughly imbued with the deferential systems of antiquity, he led his band from place to place with a fitting regard for the requirements of