The boy shook him off with a swift furious movement.
"What have you got to do with me and what have I to do with you?" he inquired equally threateningly. "This is the first time I have laid eyes upon you—and I hope it will be the last for you are unpleasant to look upon and seem as if you slept with candles as bedfellows."
At that there was a roar of laughter from the crowd. Scenting a row, every one pressed closely on the disputants. Wang the Ninth, his eyes dancing with excitement, and satisfied by the manner he had turned the tables on the others, pushed the advantage he had gained—and began what is always effective among his countrymen—a public explanation.
"I was standing here innocently with my senior," he declared, pointing to the head-groom, "when I thought I missed my purse and cried out. Fortunately I was mistaken. But merely because I voiced my suspicions these ugly fellows wish to set upon me. Things have come to a fine pass when one's talk is supervised by any one who happens to be standing near."
Expressions of sympathy greeted this outburst.
"Leave the boy alone—go your way—what have you to do with him?"—such were the style of comments made. Wang the Ninth, because he was triumphant, struck again.
"All is well—all is well," he remarked conversationally as if excusing the commotion. "Further comment is unnecessary. I have been lucky in the matter of my purse which is a humble affair. But those who are better furnished had best have a care and stand back."
At the warning people began to move on, and Wang the Ninth moved off, too, looking back at the men who were swearing and being restrained only with difficulty from following and attacking him.
"Was that laughable or not?" he said to the head-groom when they were out of earshot. "When street-fellows tackle me they get back a kind of talk they understand. Rude talk for those in foreign employment cannot be tolerated."
"It has always been like that," rejoined the head-groom. "When I first entered service twenty years ago I was smaller than you, and the difficulties were greater. It was necessary to remove all trace of foreign things before going around the city. As for riding on foreign saddles unaccompanied by one's master that was impossible."