It was such a far-fetched observation to make that I thought the boy must be more elevated than he looked, but if he was, he could at least keep himself in hand. Finding me silent, he made no advance from his side, but took a cigarette from his own case and lit it; and there we sat smoking in silence until Philipson returned. The moment he entered the room I could see by his face that he had taken one of those sudden resolves I was already beginning to get accustomed to. 'So you have been looking for work, Poyning,' he began, 'and you have found none?' Poyning solemnly inclined his head. 'The dismal situation is as I have already painted it,' he said. 'You gentlemen, no doubt skilled observers of the East and its peculiarities, can perhaps suggest the reason of my failure? Tell me, is there anything in my appearance that might be expected to militate against success?' Philipson seemed to find this funny, for I noticed he was biting his lip when he answered. 'If you will allow me to say so, Poyning,' he said, 'you are about the last type in the world the merchant princes of this country are looking for. Still, there are other employers besides the merchant princes. Perhaps I can offer you something to go on with. Would you care to earn a thousand dollars?' 'By any task a man of delicacy may fittingly undertake.' 'It is certainly a matter of delicacy--so much so that I must stipulate for absolute secrecy before I let you hear a word about it. Will you swear?' 'By all the powers of beauty and light!' said Stephen Poyning, so religiously that you might have thought he was going to cross himself. 'It is also a matter of extreme danger.' 'Not more perilous, I fancy,' returned Poyning suavely, 'than the grisly spectre of starvation which hangs over me at this moment.' It was, as I say, a high-falutin manner of talk that this little exquisite used, but there was something in his demeanour that soon made me begin to have hopes of him; and I believe Philipson had come to similar conclusions a good deal quicker than I had. 'Very well,' he said. 'The business is this. We two have vitally important affairs to transact in Shanghai, but it is not feasible for either of us to return in person. Our matters must be seen to through an agent, and even he, I may tell you at the outset, stands quite a good chance of coming to grief at the hands of the same men who will be on the watch for us.' Poyning clasped and unclasped his small womanly hands. 'It sounds by far the most interesting thing I have yet heard in China,' he mused.