"Longer than you've lived anywhere," he replied. Then he gave his attention to his hand for a moment. As the three cards he called for were dealt him he held them tightly against his chest, moving them only enough to see the edge of their marking. "Yes, longer than you've lived anywhere," he repeated and laying them face down on the table he pushed a stack of chips forward. "I'll raise that fifty," he said, and after having called the General's three queens, he remarked, "Well, sometimes it pays to believe them. Yes, Miss Davis, I know China well. I guess I know all their bad points and their good points too." "What are some of their good points?" "We've always known how to build walls," said the General, raking in chips with his delicate fingers. "Ah, yes, walls. To keep people out, I suppose?" "A lot of good that did you," said Mr. Shultz. "You never kept 'em out. What you ought to have done was to grow a little hair on your chests." "Would that have kept them out!" exclaimed the General. Megan felt an even more complete disgust with Mr. Shultz. It wiped out any repulsion or antagonism she had felt for the General, which after all had been largely physical and as she believed unimportant. Now she felt sorry for him in the hands of this terrible Shultz, convinced that there was nothing in him capable of resistance to such a brutal vulgarity. She felt she ought to make an attempt to defend him herself. Mr. Shultz leaned back in his chair and took from his vest pocket a fat cigar. He held it up to his nose and smelled it meditatively. "The best point the Chinese've got," he said, "is humor. And there is only one time it fails them. That is on a question of face. They can't stand their dignity trod on. Never. But they can laugh at each other like nothing you ever saw. That so, General? Oh, the General here has got the keenest sense of humor of the lot. By and by I'll tell you a little incident to illustrate just how far he can go in laughing at the other fellow." "I hope," said the General, "you will confine yourself to anecdotes about yourself. Another episode like that of your inadvertent assault on the honor of your fellow countrywoman." Megan again interrupted with determination. "You are the General's financial adviser, aren't you? Just what does that mean, Mr. Shultz?" "It means I can get more money out of this province than any man alive. Right now I've got nine hundred thousand taels in a box-car on a siding ready to ship anywhere. But it doesn't mean that the General follows my advice on what to do with it. Not so you'd notice it. He keeps me so he can do what I tell him not to." "What do you spend it on, General? I'm interested to know how a province is run. Nine hundred thousand taels in a box-car seems a huge sum to me!" "Depends on what you're used to," said Mr. Shultz. "The Missions wouldn't think much of it."