Megan looked at the General but his face showed only a conventional and rather absent smile of politeness. He was intent on the game which was progressing during Shultz's recital. Shultz paused in fact long enough to call a hand of Mah-li's and having, as usual, lost, remarked: "Interesting but expensive." Then, looking at Megan, he went on: "Well, of course they caught this young man easily enough. It seems he was passing for a cart coolie and he had got him a brand-new cart. One day he hid in a farm in a little outshed where they store vegetables, but he left this cart outside and the soldiers spotted it right away as being too new-looking. So they went in. He resisted them, but they got him. And Here's where the General's cleverness comes in. Did he execute him? Not a bit of it. If he'd done that every one would have believed he had double-crossed him and was obliged to get rid of him to keep him from squealing and this boy's family would have got some revenge on him. No, he pardons him after allowing himself to be persuaded a bit by all the relatives and all the prominent men of the province. That way they think he is straight, and besides, he gets a great reputation for being magnanimous. Everything O.K. I call that humor." Megan looked quickly at the General and at Captain Li. They made no comment. "Li don't speak English," said Mr. Shultz. Megan sat in silence. She was not inclined to believe anything Mr. Shultz, an obvious adventurer, an extremely repulsive personality, might say. Nevertheless the story struck a memory of what Doctor Strike had suggested about the General's capacity for treachery. She looked at the General; she remembered the gesture of helplessness he had made a moment before, and she decided they must both be wrong, deceived by what was perhaps an external necessity and had no bearing on any integral part of the General's character. "What became of the young man?" she asked, saying to herself that it really did not matter what Mr. Shultz told her. "Oh, him? Well, he got badly mauled when they were taking him out of the farm. Some say they hamstrung him but I'm not sure. Anyway, it don't matter because he shot himself. He had lost face." This of course was so obviously an attempt to pile on horror that it justified her disbelief of the whole story. The General had leaned back and was looking at the ceiling. "What do you say about it?" said Megan. "I? Why, I say he is lying grossly of course. He is trying to entertain you. I thought you would recognize that." Megan felt relieved. "Then it is not true?" "It is not true. It is based on a real incident of course. But there is no single motive in it that is correctly stated."