'When we got well, Mr. Philipson asked for us,' he replied with dignity. 'We live in the palace and wait upon him.' 'What about you, Ah Sing?' The Celestial's grin broadened. 'Ah Sing fallum one big bang,' he said. 'Him tinkee die. Nex' time him sabbee, _tai-fu_ hab come, makee numbah-one topside pidgin. Gib Ah Sing plenty good dlink. Jus' now him headum walkee plopah, no makee seeck.' Then the pair of them withdrew. As body-servants to Philipson they were clearly enjoying some consequence, and I couldn't help feeling that in the bow they gave us there was just a shade of patronage. 'What does it mean?' I cried, staring at Philipson. 'We thought those men were dead. They _were_ dead--or what we've always been taught to call dead.' 'That is just the crux of the matter,' he replied, gravely. 'What one has been accustomed to regard as death. The world we came from is rather easily satisfied on that point, but the physicians of my people here hold other views.' I noticed throughout this interview that Philipson had dropped into speaking of the people of the valley as his, as if he had never belonged to the outer world. Also, while I have written his words in fluent English, this was not how we heard them. Often he paused at a loss for an expression, and strange though it seemed to us, it was none the less manifest that Saunders Philipson was already beginning to forget the English tongue. He must have sensed what was passing through my mind. 'And how do _you_ manage with _our_ language?' he inquired. 'Poyning had it pat almost from the first,' said I. 'I've got a decent hang of it myself now--like him, I'd learned the language at school, and I had only to adapt it the way it is pronounced here. But you, Philipson, were perfectly familiar with both words and pronunciation before you came.' He started at the directness of the remark. 'You knew that?' he queried sharply. 'I heard you speaking to the doctors who attended you on the mountain side,' I said, 'and--' His eyes were on my face as palpably as if he had touched me with his fingers. 'And--and that,' I concluded, 'seemed pretty conclusive.' Philipson preserved a tense silence for about half a minute, as if debating with himself.