thrown a potato (the accepted version), which Someone else caught and returned. Then Someone threw another, and in a minute a game was in progress, with all engaged except Yen Sung, who continued his duty of replenishing the fires. Unfortunately, Someone threw the potato in the direction of Yen Sung, and the Someone whose turn it was to catch it, with no eyes except for the missile, had run in and precipitated the unfortunate Chinaman into the heart of the fire. Everyone was sorry.
There chanced to be a decent room over a loose-box empty at that time, and here, on a pallet, Yen Sung was made as comfortable as possible. Harold himself rode for a doctor, and Everyone was much relieved to learn that although severely burned here and there Yen Sung was in no danger of dying. With the cloud of a possible inquest lifted a lighter vein prevailed. Harold declared that they need not have worried, as it was impossible to kill a Chinee—they all died natural deaths; and before night it came to be agreed that it was Yen Sung's own fault and the result of his persistent habit of getting into people's way.
He made an ideal patient. He never complained, and seemed to find no difficulty in remaining quiescent, bodily and mentally, for days together. He accepted the doctor as "benevolently intentioned," and did as he was told in spite of a little private incredulity as to the efficacy of remedies applied without incantations or even coloured lights.
Yen Sung celebrated the beginning of his third week in the loft by sitting up for the first time.
"But on no account must he go out yet," reiterated the doctor for the sixth time to Miss Garstang. "I sometimes wonder most poignantly whether it's the sublimest philosophy or merely a lacquered mask over absolute
