The Weihaiwei Annals tell a story of a man who must have been born lucky. His name was Kuo and he belonged to Ch'in Ts'un, a village that lies a few miles from Port Edward. One evening he was returning from the sea-side with a load of fish. On the way he met a ghost, who pressed Kuo to allow him to carry his load. Kuo, not in the least dismayed, congratulated himself on a welcome relief and promptly placed his burden on the ghost's shoulders. Man and ghost trudged along contentedly side by side for some distance, but on arriving at Ch'in Ts'un the dogs began to bark, and the ghost, thinking this was no place for him, suggested that he must say good-bye. Kuo refused to hear of such a thing and insisted that the ghost should accompany him home and share his evening meal. On reaching home Kuo asked his unearthly visitor to sit down, and ordered his wife and child to set about getting supper ready. When the water was boiling he furtively threw into the cooking-pot some fragments of decayed wood and an old nail. The whole party, including the ghost, enjoyed a hearty meal, and when it was over the ghost took his leave without having done the least harm to any one. "If men are not afraid of ghosts," adds the Weihaiwei chronicler, "ghosts will not be able to do them any injury. When this story is attentively considered the truth of that statement will become increasingly evident." But he tells the story with perhaps the suggestion of a twinkle in his eye: for in the course of the narrative he interjects the remark, to which he adds no comment, that Kuo's besetting weakness was strong drink. It is remarkable that he offers no explanation of Kuo's action in throwing pieces of decayed wood and a nail into the cooking-pot, though this was just where Kuo showed his cunning. To put rotten wood and old iron into one's porridge will appear a meaningless rite to the uninstructed. It is a practical illustration of a popular Chinese belief that marvellous efficacy in destroying the evil influences of ghosts and demons and other ill-omened beings is inherent in rotten wood and nails taken from _old coffin-boards_ which have been actually used for the burial of a corpse. Kuo's rotten wood was--though the chronicler leaves that important point to his reader's intelligence--wood that had once formed part of a coffin.[230] This little story shows conclusively that though in Europe if one sups with the devil one must use a long spoon, in Weihaiwei one wants nothing more than a piece of coffin-wood and an old nail.