Tado pounced after it like a cat after a mouse. He rose, the glittering jewel clutched tight, reaching for his knife.
"Let me unlock the gates of speech for him, danna-san," he begged. "Often my honorable father told me of his own youth and the secrets he learned from the Chinese where punishment is an art."
The Japanese spat out something that is the same in all languages.
Tado slapped him across the mouth.
"Be still, Tado!" Carruthers' tones were steel behind their velvety softness. "We will give him into hands more experienced than yours." He glanced at the body of the porter sprawled grotesquely on its back. "Tomorrow we must get a new porter," he smiled, "one that is not an outcast."
"Let me hire him, danna-san?" Tado broke in swiftly.
"That you shall, wise one," Carruthers went on heartily. "I am beginning to think you should have had the hiring of this one as well. Then, all this trouble would not have happened."
Tado swelled with pride.
"And no more will my danna-san call me baby?" he asked softly.
"Never again, Tado," Carruthers promised. "Baby you are no longer, but a true samurai and a credit to the race of the Yamoto."
Hsun Hsu
By Hung Long Tom
In the porcelains of Hsun Hsu
Were recorded
The entire history
Of beauty.
A golden vase he made
Like yellow velvet
On which a gold-girl trod,
Fit mistress for a god.
He created a vase
On which
Was the pink glory of sunrise.
Another was blue
Like the deep night fields of the sky.
But the rarest of all
Was Mirror Black
Wherein were reflected
His countless lovely dreams,
Dreams and purple visions
Which no human hand
Could paint.
