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The Chinese students who aspire to honors spend years in verbally memorizing the classics Confucius and Mencius and receive degrees and public advancement upon ability to transcribe from memory without the error of a point, or misplacement of a single tea-chest character, the whole of some books of morals. You do not wonder that China is today more like an herbarium than anything else.
The tea-chest, though of no less consequence to us than the military-chest to a general, was given up as lost, or rather as stolen, for though I would not, for the world, mention any particular name, it is certain we had suspicions, and all, I am afraid, fell on the same person.
"Come in, Bryce, and shut the door. What's this?" On a tea-chest set beside the glowing stove, the little door of which was open, stood a highly polished squat wooden image, gilded and colored red and green. It was that of a leering Chinaman, possibly designed to represent Buddha, and its jade eyes seemed to blink knowingly in the dancing rays from the stove.
He seated himself upon a tea-chest beside the useful cupboard, resting his hands upon his knees and smiling. Kerry, chewing steadily, had watched the proceedings in silence, but now: "Constable Bryce," he said crisply, "you recognize this man as Sin Sin Wa, the occupier of the house?" "Yes, sir," replied Bryce. He was not wholly at ease, and persistently avoided the Chinaman's oblique, beady eye.
It was getting close upon sundown when the last load was packed into the longboat. Silk bale, tea-chest, rice-bag, crate, and box, with an enormous amount of indescribable loot, including all kinds of weapons, had been taken aboard; and the men who had come up for fresh burdens began cheering like mad as they found the task was done. "That will do, my lads; steady steady!" cried Mr Reardon.
"Leave a woman alone to find out that," said John admiringly. "Now, a man would never have thought of it! Whereas, it's my belief that if you was to pack a wedding-cake up in a tea-chest, or a turn-up bedstead, or a pickled-salmon keg, or any unlikely thing, a woman would be sure to find it out directly. Yes; I called for it at the pastrycook's."
"Good night, old bird," cried Jim, following his colleague. "So-long." The door closed, and Sin Sin Wa, shuffling across, rebolted it. As Sir Lucien came out from his hiding-place Sin Sin Wa returned to his seat on the tea-chest, first putting the glass, unwashed, and the rum bottle back in the cupboard. To the ordinary observer the Chinaman presents an inscrutable mystery.
His brother tried the tea-chest, and, finding it locked, poured out some coffee, which he drank almost unconsciously, then gave his cup for more, sighed, pushed his hair back, and looked up somewhat revived.
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