THE IRON RING.
CHANG WANG was a Chinaman, and was reputed to be one of the shrewdest dealers in the Flowery Land. If making money fast be the test of cleverness, there was not a merchant in the province of Kwang Tung who had earned a better right to be called clever. Who owned so many fields of the tea-plant, who shipped so many bales of its leaves to the little island in the west, as did Chang Wang? It was whispered, indeed, that many of the bales contained green tea made by chopping up spoiled black tea leaves, and coloring them with copper—a process likely to turn them into a mild kind of poison; but if the unwholesome trash found purchasers, Chang Wang never troubled himself with the thought whether any one might suffer in health from drinking his tea. So long as the dealer made money, he was content; and plenty of money he made.
But knowing how to make money is quite a different thing from knowing how to enjoy it. With all his ill-gotten gains, Chang Wang was a miserable man; for he had no heart to spend his silver pieces, even on his own comfort. The rich dealer lived in a hut which one of his own laborers might have despised; he dressed as a poor Tartar shepherd might have dressed when driving his flock. Chang Wang grudged himself even a hat to keep off the rays of the sun. Men laughed, and said that he would have cut off his own pigtail of plaited hair, if he could have sold it for the price of a dinner!
Chang Wang was, in fact, a miser, and was rather proud than ashamed of the hateful vice of avarice.
Chang Wang had to make a journey to Macao, down the great River Yang-se-kiang, for purposes of trade. The question with the Chinaman now was, in what way he should travel.
“Shall I hire a palanquin?” thought Chang Wang, stroking his thin mustaches; “no, a palanquin would cost too much money. Shall I take my passage in a trading vessel?”
The rich trader shook his head, and the pigtail behind it—such a passage would have to be paid for.
“I know what I’ll do,” said the miser to himself; “I’ll ask my uncle Fing Fang to take me in his fishing-boat down the great river. It is true that it will make my journey a long one; but then I shall make it for nothing. I’ll go to the fisherman Fing Fang, and settle the matter at once.”
The business was soon arranged, for Fing Fang would not refuse his rich nephew a seat in his boat. But he, like every one else, was disgusted at Chang Wang’s meanness; and as soon as the dealer had left his hovel, thus spoke Fing Fang to his sons, Ko and Jung:—