“At present I believe that it would only do harm. A superabundance of memorials is as bad as none at all. Beyond a certain point, they only irritate officials.” “Very well,” said Jasmine; “I am quite content to leave the conduct of affairs in your hands.” “Well then,” said Tu, “that being understood, I propose that you should move your things over to this inn. There is Wei’s room at your disposal, and your constant presence here will be balm to my lonely spirit. At the Hata Gate you are almost as remote as if you were in our study at Mienchu.” Jasmine was at first startled by this proposal. Though she had been constantly in the company of Tu, she had never lived under the same roof with him, and she at once recognised that there might be difficulties in the way of her keeping her secret if she were to be constantly under the eyes of her friend. But she had been so long accustomed to yield to the present circumstances, and was so confident that Fortune, which, with some slight irregularities, had always stood her friend, would not desert her on the present occasion, that she gave way. “By all means,” she said. “I will go back to my inn, and bring my things at once. This writing-case I will leave here. I brought it because it contains my father’s petition.” So saying, she took her leave, and Tu retired to his easy-chair under the cotton-tree. But the demon of curiosity was abroad, and alighting on the arm of Tu’s chair, whispered in his ear that it might be well if he ran his eye over Colonel Wen’s petition to see if there was any argument in it which he had omitted in his statement to the Board of War. At first, Tu, whose nature was the reverse of inquisitive, declined to listen to these promptings, but so persistent did they become that he at last put down his book--“The Spring and Autumn Annals”--and, seating himself, at the sitting-room table, opened the writing-case so innocently left by Jasmine. On the top were a number of red visiting-cards bearing the inscription, in black, of Wen Tsunk’ing, and beneath these was the petition. Carefully Tu read it through, and passed mental eulogies on it as he proceeded. The colonel had put his case skilfully, but Tu had no difficulty in recognising Jasmine’s hand, both in the composition of the document and in the penmanship. “If my attempt,” he thought, “does not succeed, we will try what this will do.” He was on the point of returning it to its resting-place, when he saw another document in Jasmine’s handwriting lying by it. This was evidently a formal document, probably connected, as he thought, with the colonel’s case, and he therefore unfolded it and read as follows: