"I want a nice one," he of the drooping eyelid asserted; "a white one, spotted like a cheetah, or perhaps yellow."
The shopkeeper had none such as he described, he said, but he had some fine cloth of red hue that came from a shop in Sule Pagoda Street, in distant Rangoon.
"Ah!" exclaimed the juggler. "I have been to Rangoon. It is a great city. Let me see the cloth of red."
In the course of bargaining, he said:
"Tell me, O wise one, is there in the bazaar a merchant who bears the name of Da-yak?"
The Burman grunted that there was and waved his hand toward a lighted doorway not far away. "There!"
"Ah!" exclaimed the juggler again. And he added, by way of explanation, that at Waingmaw, whence he had come, a friend warned him against buying at the shop of Da-yak, who was a cheat.
"All Tibetans are cheats," was the Burman's comment.
"Has he been here long, robbing you of your trade?" the juggler pursued.
"Oh, not very long," was the languid answer; "since about the time of the casting of the bell in the pagoda last year. But his shop is not half so nice as mine. He is a dirty wild-man." Then: "Didst thou say, O traveller, that thou wouldst take the turban cloth for six rupees and two annas?"