“The rod!” exclaimed Chang Tao in astonishment. “Can it really be that one who is so invariably polite to me is not in every way immaculate?”
“Either bamboo will greet his feet or hemp adorn his neck,” persisted the other, with a significant movement of his hands in the proximity of his throat. “Walk backwards in the direction of that house, son of my son. Is there not one Ning of the worthy line of Lo, dwelling beneath the emblem of a Sprouting Aloe?”
“Truly,” agreed the youth, “but at an early age she came under the malign influence of a spectral vampire, and in order to deceive the creature she was adopted to the navigable portion of the river here, and being announced as having Passed Above was henceforth regarded as a red mullet.”
“Yet in what detail does that deter you?” inquired Chang, for the nature of his grandson’s expression betrayed an acute absence of enthusiasm towards the maiden thus concerned.
“Perchance the vampire was not deceived after all. In any case this person dislikes red mullet,” replied the youth indifferently.
The venerable shook his head reprovingly.
“It is imprudent to be fanciful in matters of business,” he remarked. “Lo Chiu, her father, is certainly the possessor of many bars of silver, and, as it is truly written: ‘With wealth one may command demons; without it one cannot summon even a slave.’”
“It is also said: ‘When the tree is full the doubtful fruit remains upon the branch,’” retorted Chang Tao. “Are not maidens in this city as the sand upon a broad seashore? If one opens and closes one’s hands suddenly out in the Ways on a dark night, the chances are that three or four will be grasped. A stone cast at a venture—”
“Peace!” interrupted the elder. “Witless spoke thus even in the days of this person’s remote youth—only the virtuous did not then open and close their hands suddenly in the Ways on dark nights. Is aught reported of the inner affairs of Shen Yi, a rich philosopher who dwells somewhat remotely on the Stone Path, out beyond the Seven Terraced Bridge?”
Chang Tao looked up with a sharply awakening interest.