Edgar Wallace

“ Then suddenly he rose and changed the conversation abruptly.
"ONE still hopes, your Excellency, that the recources of diplomacy are not yet exhausted in relation to the concession. We have endeavored to live in peace and harmony with our neighbors and may yet live."
Chen bared his teeth in that invisible smile of his. "After all, this is not a matter which especially and particularly affects the Republic. Only France favors your suggestion." ”

“ Kito's voice was loud and cheerful and he spoke in English.
Chen was standing now, his head bowed respectfully.
"It is an unexpected pleasure, your Excellency," he said, and they both sat, Kito on the softly cushioned earth.
"You have been mountaineering?"
The viscount glanced at the skis and his big good-humored face puckered again in a smile. "I am a little too fat for that form of exercise."
"Hardly mountaineering."
Chen could not smile. Nature had not so designed his face. He could display two rows of large teeth from gum to gum and this he did. ”

“ It was as characteristic of the Chen family as is the jaw of the Bourbon, and even the impure stock of the clan would limp in imitation, so that it was said of Kiao-Chow where every other man was named "Chen" that it was "a city of short legs." He limped down the hill until he came to a patch of wood where the ground was a carpet resilient with pine-needles. Men had been felling the trees for fire-wood, and he found a trunk that enabled him to sit with his back to the sun and waited, putting his skis very carefully and orderly under his legs. ”

“ THE viscount shifted his legs to a more comfortable position.
"It was lamentable that the concession was not approved, your Excellency," he said, bringing to the occasion the atmosphere of the council chamber. "I can not understand why the powers should imagine that a little lease for twenty years would imperil the sovereignty of your republic."
"Twenty years is a very long time," said Chen. "I think it was Machiavelli who said that a government may in safety surrender its revenues of millions, but is ruined by the concession of a ducat's worth of principles. ”

“ He took one between his fingers.
"Whosoever speaks well of the sage his mouth shall be filled with sweetness," he quoted, and the boy opened his lips.
Before they could close on the morsel, Kito with a roar had sprung between them and had dashed the chocolates to the ground. He stood puffing, his face gray, his eyes a blazing hell of fury.
"My son is ill, Excellency," he breathed. "It is not permitted to give him sweetmeats."
SO it had failed. Chen had foreseen the possibility. He turned blandly and unmoved to the shaking man. ”

“ Even when he had gone to the family temple to announce his betrothal to the spirits of his ancestors, and particularly to that Lady Chen who was such a model of the domestic virtues that the Emperor Ch'ien Lung had celebrated her qualities in a poem written by his own hand with a vermilion pencil, he had made no secret of his apprehension. ”

“ His mask of a face was turned to the valley below and the green-gray spread of the lake. Then he shuffled forward to a promising boulder, sat down and, stripping his gloves, began slowly to unbuckle the straps which bound his feet to the runners. ”

“ When that was done, he opened the packages which Li San had brought, washed the hypodermic syringe, and collecting three of the chocolate confections placed them on the table. The label on the little phial which had come from the chemist bore the words in French: "Guard. This is death!" and he drew back his lips to show his teeth at the quaint wording. Then he settled to the serious business of the afternoon. Very gingerly he inserted the needle of the syringe into one of the chocolates and drew out a pink fluid. ”

“ This time, he spoke in English, and Li San, a doctor of philosophy of the Imperial University and moreover a bachelor of arts of the University of Oxford, replied in the same language and without hesitation.
"Your Excellency has worked well for the Republic," he said.
"What said the Master?" asked Chen. All his life had he been bound by the Confucian creed. There was not a character in the Lun Yu which he had not read a score of times. "There are three duties which a man owes," he said slowly. "They are to his parents and ancestors ”

“ Kilo murmured his condolences. "My third wife is young and very lively," he said. "She is with my younger children in London and it is expected that she will bear her fourth child in a month if the gods favor me, though none of the women of her family have borne anything but girls. ”

“ The Limp of the Clan Chen
By Edgar Wallace
Death May Come to Oriental Feudists. But Oriental Feuds Never Die—At Least not until Oriental Cunning Finds a Way of Evening the Scales
THE pace of his Excellency Chi Li Chen slackened as he reached the edge of the snow-line, but increased again for a hundred meters or more where his skis fluffed into a pocket of snow that lay in the blue shadow of the Cret d'y Beau. At the rim of the pocket the brown earth showed an uncompromising barrier, and he turned and checked in a flurry of flying white particles. ”