A ring of the gong brought the serving-maid with cigars. His Excellency declined to smoke tobacco; instead he spoke to the girl in his own tongue and she vanished, to reappear presently with the requisites of an opium smoker—a lighted lamp on a tray, a blue jar containing poppy-treacle, and a metal pipe. The jar, Trent observed, was a piece of blue porcelain of the Sung period.
Then, after the manner of the East, which is to say, obliquely, his Excellency approached the subject of Trent's visit.
"There are certain necessary precautions," he began, while the girl twisted a black gummy substance about a needle and held it over the lamp, "before we enter into any discussion."
Trent opened his shirt and revealed a coral pendant chased with silver, lying against his skin. Li Kwai Kung nodded.
"And if I say, 'It is a wise man who holds his tongue in the presence of knaves,'" pursued the mandarin, "what would be your comment?"
"I would reply with the ancient wisdom of Lao Tzü—'By many words wit is exhausted; it is better to preserve a mien.'"
Li Kwai Kung nodded again. "Hao," he grunted—and his guest did not know that was a signal for the house-boy, armed with a revolver, to retire from behind one of the many screens.
"It is needless, I am sure," the Oriental resumed, "for me to caution you, who are about to start on a journey to the dwelling-place of He-whose-wisdom-is-as-a-lamp-filled-with-much-oil, that the discreet man questions himself, a fool others. You will tread the path of discretion, I know, for I perceive that the light of intelligence burns with much brightness in your brain."
A pause. Trent studied the blue porcelain jar. Li Kwai Kung took the metal pipe from the girl and inhaled; bluish vapor welled from his nostrils, half-obscuring his countenance.
"The arm of the Order is long and powerful, like Mother Yangtze, and its eyes are as many as the stars." Their glances met; no expression was mirrored in either face. "Yours is a great work to do," continued his Excellency, sinking deeper among the cushions and expelling smoke. "The Order will reward the faithful; they shall flourish as the willow-branch. The first step of your journey to the City of the Falcon will be taken shortly—and what sage was it that said, 'A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step'?"