“I agree with you, my dear sir. But it is something to have spared His Excellency the sight of the disfigurement which is written on the back of your most unfortunate friend.” “Maybe the ambassador could see it from where he stood,” suggested O’Shea. “No. His eyes are not of the best without spectacles. He is not a young man and his health is inferior. To shock him by the sight of something dreadful to see might have unhappy consequences.” “But what is the answer? Why was every man of you bowled off his feet?” exclaimed O’Shea. “’Tis not the way of your people to be afraid of scars and wounds. Ye deal out some pretty tough punishments to your criminals.” “It is advisable that you should pay your respects to His Excellency,” evasively returned the Chinese. The ambassador regarded Captain O’Shea with an unfriendly stare until the secretary, with many low bows, held rapid converse with the personage in his own language. The elderly statesman and diplomat grunted incredulously, shook his head in vehement contradiction, and O’Shea conjectured that he was roundly scolding the young man for bringing him such an impossible yarn. At length he yielded with a frown of annoyance and briefly addressed the shipmaster. “I speak not much English. Come into my house, please.” He preceded them into a large library with many long windows screened by bamboo shades. Passing through this, he entered a smaller room more convenient for privacy. The threshold was a boundary between the Occident and the Orient. The library looked, for the most part, as though it belonged in a handsome summer-place of the New England coast, but this smaller room was as foreign as the ambassador himself. The air was heavy with the smell of sandal-wood. The massive table and chairs were of teak and ebony cunningly carved. The walls were hung with embroideries of crimson and gold, on which grotesque dragons writhed in intricate convolutions. The pieces of porcelain, jade, and cloisonné were not many, but they had been fashioned by the artists of dead dynasties and were almost beyond price. Upon a long panel of silk was displayed a row of Chinese characters cut from black velvet and sewn to the fabric. They were merely the symbols of good fortune commonly to be found in such an environment as this, a sort of equivalent of the old-fashioned motto, “God Bless Our Home,” but to Captain Michael O’Shea they carried an uncomfortable suggestion of the handiwork done upon the back of Bill Maguire.