“Alas!” cried Chou-hu, turning an exceedingly inferior yellow, “there is a deeper wisdom in the proverb, ’Do not seek to escape from a flood by clinging to a tiger’s tail,’ than appears at a casual glance.  Now that this person is contemplating gathering again into his own hands the execution of his business, he cannot reasonably afford to employ another, yet it is an intolerable thought that Yan should make use of his experience to set up a sign opposed to the Gilt Thunderbolt.  Obviously the only really safe course out of an unpleasant dilemma will be to slay Yan with as little delay as possible.  After receiving continuous marks of our approval for so long it is certainly very thoughtless of him to put us to so unpardonable an inconvenience.”

“It is not an alluring alternative,” confessed Tsae-che, crossing the room to where Yan was seated in order to survey her hair to greater advantage in a hanging mirror of three sides composed of burnished copper; “but there seems nothing else to be done in the difficult circumstances.”

“The street is opportunely empty and there is little likelihood of anyone approaching at this hour,” suggested Chou-hu.  “What better scheme could be devised than that I should indicate to Yan by signs that I would honour him, and at the same time instruct him further in the correct pose of some of the recognized attitudes, by making smooth the surface of his face?  Then during the operation I might perchance slip upon an overripe whampee lying unperceived upon the floor; my hand—­”

“Ah-ah!” cried Tsae-che aloud, pressing her symmetrical fingers against her gracefully-proportioned ears; “do not, thou dragon-headed one, lead the conversation to such an extremity of detail, still less carry the resolution into effect before the very eyes of this delicately-susceptible person.  Now to-morrow, after the midday meal, she will be journeying as far as the street of the venders of woven fabrics in order to procure a piece of silk similar to the pearl-grey robe which she is wearing.  The opportunity will be a favourable one, for to-morrow is the weekly occasion on which you raise the shutters and deny customers at an earlier hour; and it is really more modest that one of my impressionable refinement should be away from the house altogether and not merely in the inner chamber when that which is now here passes out.”

“The suggestion is well timed,” replied Chou-hu.  “No interruption will then be possible.”

“Furthermore,” continued his wife, sprinkling upon her hair a perfumed powder of gold which made it sparkle as it engaged the light at every point with a most entrancing lustre, “would it not be desirable to use a weapon less identified with your own hand?  In the corner nearest to Yan there stands a massive and heavily knotted club which could afterwards be burned.  It would be an easy matter to call the simple Yan’s attention to some object upon the floor and then as he bent down suffer him to Pass Beyond.”