This was very comforting to Burroughs. He had not before imagined that so much virtue could reside in a moustache. It was now time to make the suggestion that he should be arrested and imprisoned with the Englishman. At this his host looked troubled. "I am a poor unworthy captain," he said, trying to draw in his waist. "It is not for me to meddle with the arrangements made in the yamen of my august master Su Fing. Nobody but Su Fing himself, or his honourable lieutenant, Fen Ti, could do that." Burroughs felt bound to put on an air of extreme indignation. "Do you mean to tell me," he said, "that you will endanger the success of your master’s mighty enterprise, lose the support of the greatest nation in the world, and compel me to return with the swift boat and the thousand dollars I carry? Of a truth, when your august chief returns he will think that the honourable captain he left to fill his place ought to have shown more discretion. Do you not see that if it is known I am supporting your master it may lead to war between Germany and England? My country, of course, has no fear of failure in such a war. but it suits our purpose at present to avoid it. It must be told in the ports up-river that your chief is arresting Germans as well as Englishmen." Chung Pi, being no politician, was properly impressed by the possible momentous consequences of his refusal to have greatness thrust upon him. After some further talk, he came round to the view that it was his duty to serve Germans and English alike, and he went off to the yamen to make the necessary arrangements. On his return he explained that the room in which the Englishman was confined was at his honourable guest’s service, and it would give him great pleasure to shut the two foreign devils up together. At this Burroughs feared that he had perhaps pressed the point too far: to be strictly confined would not suit him at all, So he carefully explained that the prison was a detail of no importance: all that was necessary was that it should be given out that a German had been arrested. The rumour would be carried down the river, and come to the ears of the English; whereupon the German emperor and the English king would be so much occupied in disputing which should have his man out first, that Su Fing would have plenty of time to overrun the whole province and make good his position with the aid of German gold.