The Russian in his shop shows all he has of wares, the red and magenta cloths, the enameled kettles, the cutlery and sweetmeats. But the Chinaman wraps his goods in hieroglyphic-covered papers, and all that can be seen are rows of long-stemmed brass-bowled pipes, and an array of silver and bronze teapots on shelves at one side. Very rare things, too, our Chinese host can produce. Shanghai silks of finest texture, ten roubles the _arsheen_; jade mouthpieces for the pipes at a hundred _taels_; Hankow tea culled from the tenderest shoots. Everything is labeled and systematized in the Chinaman’s place, and he goes at once to the packet which he wishes to show. A dozen Chinese, with bright blue silk jackets over their black surtouts, invade now the home of the merchant. The red knot on their black skull-caps and the length of their queues and finger-nails show them to be men of some importance. They take off the bright-colored ear-tabs as they enter. They are down to buy wool. To-day they visit, next week they will trade. Then all but one will sit in the outer shop, while the spokesman alone will go into the inner room and confer with the merchant. From time to time the spokesman will go back to the party and consult, till in the end the bargain is made. They will all hold to the agreement, too, whichever way the market goes. For in this the Chinese are inflexibly honest. A local Chinaman dispatched a mounted messenger the six versts to Urga, to return to us twenty kopecks which he had overcharged by a slip of his abacus-adder. Yet the Scotch engineers saw shells in the arsenals loaded with clay when the native troops went against the Japanese. The English miners in the Province of Shan-tung have had their profits cut to nothing by the official “squeezes,” and Chinese have bought in the depreciated stocks. The ethic code of the squeeze seems to be very nice. It is a point of honor, almost always scrupulously observed, that the first-fruits of official graft go to repaying the one who advanced the money to buy the office. A Chinaman, who could not be trusted to administer honestly a trust fund of a hundred _taels_, will repay this obligation to his backer. Thus must he keep face. From the tax-appraiser who numbers the sheep to the civil governor who receives the lumps of silver tribute for transmission to Peking, every official gets his squeeze. They say in the _eimuck_ of Ulasati, where sables are part of the tribute, that the officials take out the best furs and put back poor skins to keep the number the same; and in Urga, that the enormously rich administration takes a Tammany third of the tribute. There has never been a viceroy yet, it is reported, who has left Mongolia poor. Yet each official plays straight with his backer, his “belly-band.” Very curious is this race, and there live few Westerners who can at all understand it.