Among the Celestials : vol.1 / Page 148 (Color Image)

0148	Among the Celestials : vol.1

Ito AMONG THE CELESTIALS. [CHAP. VI.

look after me. If I came to grief he was sure

to suffer for it sooner or later. • Whereas, if I

got through, a handsome reward would fall to

his lot. This method of dealing with him

answered admirably ; he used to swagger about

with the revolver, showed it to everybody he

met, and told the most abominable lies about

the execution it could do. Nobody can lie

with such good effect as a Chinaman, and as

he told the gaping Mongols and Turkis, that

though he could bowl over only about twenty

men at a time with his weapon, I had about

me much more deadly instruments, they used

to look upon me with the greatest awe, and

I never had the semblance of a disturbance on

the whole of my journey.

Liu-san's propensity for fibbing was not

always so fortunate, and he used to annoy me

considerably at times by telling people that I

was a man of great importance, with the object,

of course, of enhancing his own. I used to see

him button-hole a grave old Turki. and tell

him in a subdued whispers with mysterious

glances at me, that I was " Yâng-ta jên," the

great man Young (husband), an influential

envoy from Peking, and that the utmost re-

National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books