Evening star., 1921-12-18

pressed tho belly side Of the cicada.
He gave his comrade one Of the
portions.
Go you to the yamen. Seek the
white man. tell him that I have this
Han yu. and will meet him just out
side the south gate II he wishes to
buy 1t. Meantime, will go to the
other white man, tell him that you
have the Han yu. and get an offer on
it. They will see from the two char
acters what 1t represents. The one
who offers most will get It,"
The two mulled over this scheme
for half an hour. There were nc
flaws in 1t when they had finished.
With his wax impression. one SOL
der betook himself to the mandarin's
yamen, not far from the south gate
Here he obtained audience with Ben
soma private audience-and gave his
very good reason for keeping the
mandarin out of business. He told
all about the cicada, which, according
to his story. had been found in the
belly of fish taken from the river
and bought by his comrade. who was
waiting. He described it exactly, and
Benson began to get excited. 'Ine
thing might really be Han jade.
But when Benson saw the wax i'm
preston he had hard work to keep his
jubilation from showing. The. two
characters he recognized instantly as
the name of Ling tt. This leaf-green
cicada was the amulet of the emperor
the amulet that had been lost!
X X X X
HANECY. reclined at his ease in
- room Of the Tu-kung temple
where his partner, Toptit, was domi'
ciled, was in one of his rarely talka-
tive moods. Toptit was pretending to
write more poetry, but was in reality
jotting down what Hanecy said-fol
he knew that Hanecy had been long
in the land and was wise in many
ways.
There are several kinds Of antique
dealers, Toptit. One kind gets stuff
on consignment, much Of 1t from me
he has a goodly patter about Kier
Lung, Han periods and SO forth. He
doesn't know that there were three
distinct Han periods-and his custom.
ers think he's a wonder.
Then there's the royal ass, who
comes. to China every three or foul
years and buys what I have stored
nd oh
the bull about how he picked these
things up here and there-gets gooC
prices, too. He's usually called ar
authority. He's the one who gets VI
auction catalogues and refers any ole
bronze to Shang or Chou, especially
if it has a date. He doesn't know
that ancient date marks spells fraud.
"Then there's the man who has {
firm, and who spends his time here
picking up stuff. He knows the game
down to the ground, has every mil
lionaire collector spotted and on his
strings, and gets ten thousand for the
right netsuke or snuff bottle. He:
on the level with his customers, al
though he'd just as soon steal his staufi
from the National Museum at Peki1S II
he had to get it that way"
"Ah" said Toptit with interest
That's Benson"
That's Benson" said Hanecy. grin
ming. $50 you're going down-river II
the morning, are you?"
Toptit nodded soberly. Eyes. Tn
going to trail down some more Of thi:
Ling tt stuff. 1t seems certain tha
the emperor's amulet is lost, SO we't
better transfer our attention to thu
other things. You think Benson will
trail me
.eNo-but you'll be trailed." sait
Hanecy drily. He yawned and rose
! "well, SO long! I'll be around in thu
morning to see that you get off SAFE
He left the little temple Of th'
eighth poet and patriot. A
he was leaving the gateway OF tn
large temple in whose grounds stoot
| the Tu- -kun5~tsz, he was halted by :