Page:Strange stories from a Chinese studio.djvu/154

A CHINESE STUDIO 125

for him, proceeding to lay down as much as several ounces of silver for a single stake.

As the play was in full swing another man walked in, who after watching for some time at length got the pro- prietor to change another lump of silver for him of one hundred ounces in weight, and also asked to be allowed to join. Now Hsiu's uncle, waking up in the middle of the night, and finding his nephew gone, and hearing the sound of diccrthrowing hard by, knew at once where he was, and inmiediately followed him to the boat with a view of bringing him back. Finding, however, that Hsiu was a heavy winner, he said nothing to him, only carrying off a portion of his winnings to their own boat . and making the others of his party get up and help him to fetch the rest, even then leaving behind a large sum for Hsiu to go on with. By-and-by the three strangers had lost all their ready money, and there wasn't a farthing left in the boat : upon which one of them proposed to play for lumps of silver, but Hsiu said he never went so high as that. This made them a little quarrelsome, Hsiu's uncle all the time trying to get him away ; and the proprietor of the boat, who had only his own commission in view, managed to borrow some hundred strings of cash from another boat, and started them all again. Hsiu soon took this out of them ; and, as day was beginning to dawn and the Custom House was about to open, he went off with his winnings back to his own boat.

The proprietor of the gambling-boat now found that the lumps of silver which he had changed for his customers were nothing more than so much tinsel, and rushing off in a great state of alarm to Hsiu's boat, told him what had happened and asked him to make it good ; but when he discovered he was speaking to the son of his former travel- ling companion, Jen Chien-chih, he hung his head and slunk away covered with shame. For the proprietor of that boat was no other than Shen Chu-t'ing, of whom Hsiu had heard when he was in Shensi ; now, however, that with supernatural aid ^ the wrongs of his father had been avenged, he determined to pursue the man no further. So going into partnership with his uncle, they proceeded

' One of the strangers was the disembodied spirit of Hsiu's father, helping his son to take vengeance on the wicked Shdn«