“Yet no crime has been committed, beneficence,” Kai Lung ventured to protest; “nor in his attitude before your virtuous self has this one been guilty of any act of disrespect.”

“You have shown your mind to be both wide and deep, and suitably lined,” declared Shan Tien, dexterously avoiding the weightier part of the story-teller’s plea.  “A question now arises as to the efficacy of embroidered coffin cloths, and wherein their potent merit lies.  Out of your well-stored memory declare your knowledge of this sort, conveying the solid information in your usual palatable way.”

“I bow, High Excellence,” replied Kai Lung.  “This concerns the story of Wang Ho.”

The Story of Wang Ho and the Burial Robe

There was a time when it did not occur to anyone in this pure and enlightened Empire to question the settled and existing order of affairs.  It would have been well for the merchant Wang Ho had he lived in that happy era.  But, indeed, it is now no unheard-of thing for an ordinary person to suggest that customs which have been established for centuries might with advantage be changed—­a form of impiety which is in no degree removed from declaring oneself to be wiser or more profound than one’s ancestors!  Scarcely more seemly is this than irregularity in maintaining the Tablets or observing the Rites; and how narrow is the space dividing these delinquencies from the actual crimes of overturning images, counselling rebellion, joining in insurrection and resorting to indiscriminate piracy and bloodshed.

Certainly the merchant Wang Ho would be a thousand taels wealthier to-day if he had fully considered this in advance.  Nor would Cheng Lin—­but who attempts to eat an orange without first disposing of the peel, or what manner of a dwelling could be erected unless an adequate foundation be first provided?

Wang Ho, then, let it be stated, was one who had early in life amassed a considerable fortune by advising those whose intention it was to hazard their earnings in the State Lotteries as to the numbers that might be relied upon to be successful, or, if not actually successful, those at least that were not already predestined by malign influences to be absolutely incapable of success.  These chances Wang Ho at first forecast by means of dreams, portents and other manifestations of an admittedly supernatural tendency, but as his name grew large and the number of his clients increased vastly, while his capacity for dreaming remained the same, he found it no less effective to close his eyes and to become inspired rapidly of numbers as they were thus revealed to him.