Fong Wu gave his shoulders a characteristic shrug.
"But," she continued, "you speak English so perfectly. Perhaps you were taught that in this country."
"No—in England. But the other, I was not."
"In England! Well!"
"I went there as a young man."
"But these herbs, these medicines you have—they did not come from England, did they?"
He smiled. "Some came from the hills at our back." Then, crossing to his shelves and reaching up, "This"—he touched a silk-covered package—"is from Sumbawa in the Indian Sea; and this"—his finger was upon the cork of a phial—"is from Feng-shan, Formosa; and other roots are taken in winter from the lake of Ting-ting-hu, which is then dry; and still others come from the far mountains of Chamur."
"Do you know," Mrs. Barrett said tentatively, "I have always heard that Chinese doctors give horrid things for medicine—sharks' teeth, frogs' feet, lizards' tails, and—and all sorts of dreadful things."
Fong Wu proffered no enlightenment.
"I am glad," she went on, "that I have learned better."