"Anything or nothing, my friend. It reads like a proverb. The oriental soul takes pleasure in maxims. Yet everything they do or say has a meaning--very often a double meaning." "Such as Wu Fang's table talk," smiled Gray. "Granted. Is this any particular dialect?" "Written Chinese is much the same everywhere. Just as the Arabic numerals throughout Europe." He scanned the silk attentively, and his lips parted. "The first ideograph combines the attribute or adjective 'clever' or 'shrewd' with the indicator 'man.' A shrewd man--_hua jen_." "Perhaps Wu Fang: perhaps you. Go on." "The second character is very ancient, almost a picture-drawing of warning streamers. It is an emphatic 'do not!'" "Then it's you--and me." "The third character is prefixed by _mu_, a tree, and signifies a wooden board, or a wall. The fourth means 'the West.'" "A riddle, but not so hard to guess," grinned Gray, taking up his maps from the table and filling his pipe preparatory to work. "_A wise guy doesn't climb the western wall_." "You forget," pointed out Delabar sharply, "the negative. It is the strongest kind of a warning. _Do not, if you are wise, approach the western wall_. My friend, this is a plain warning--even a threat. To-day Wu Fang Chien hinted we should not go to Liangchowfu. Now he threatens----" "I gathered as much." Gray took the slip of fine silk and scanned it quizzically. "Delabar, do you know the ideograph for 'to make' or 'build?'" The scientist nodded. "Then write it, where it seems to fit in here." Delabar did so, with a glance at his companion. Whereupon the soldier folded the missive and replaced it in the jar. He clapped his hands loudly. Almost at once a boy appeared in the door. To him Gray handed the vase with instructions to carry it to His Excellency, the official Wu Fang Chien. He reënforced his order with a piece of silver cash. To the curious scientist he explained briefly. "Wu Fang is a scholar. He will read our reply as: _A wise man will not build a wall in the west_. It will give him food for thought, and it may keep His Excellency's men from overhauling our belongings a second time during our absence." Delabar started. "May?" "Yes. Remember I left that message of Wu's on top of these maps. I find it underneath them. The maps are all here. We locked our door, carefully. Some one has evidently given our papers the once over and forgotten to replace them in the order he found them. I say it _may_ have been at Wu's orders. I think it probably was." "Why?" Delabar licked his thin lips nervously. "Because nothing has been taken. A Chinese official has the right to be curious about strangers in his district. Likewise, his men wouldn't have much trouble in entering the room--with the landlord's assistance. The ordinary run of thieves would have taken something valuable--my field glasses, for instance." Delabar strode nervously the length of the room and peered from the shutters.