"Then, why did you not come?" the oldish man asked benignantly.
"The fake foreigner would not let me!"
"Nonsense! It is too late to say that you had intended to come. Now where are your accomplices?"
"What?"
"The men who robbed the Chao family that night, where are they?"
"They did not come for me. They carried off the things themselves," Ah Q said vehemently.
"Where did they go? You will be set free if you tell." The oldish man was more benign than ever.
"I do not know . . . they did not come for me."
At a glance from the oldish man Ah Q was again seized and thrust into the cell. When he was dragged out of the grilled door for the second time it was the forenoon of the second day.
Things were the same in the great hall. The oldish man again sat behind the table and again Ah Q knelt down.
The oldish man asked benignantly, "Have you anything else to say?"
Ah Q could not think of anything, so he answered, "Nothing."
Thereupon a personage in a long gown approached Ah Q with a sheet of paper and a writing brush which he was about to put into Ah Q's hand. At this Ah Q became confused, nay terrified out of his wits, for this was the first time that he had ever come into such proximity with a writing brush. He was pondering how it should be held, when the man pointed to a place on the sheet of paper and told him to sign.
