Sons by Pearl S. Buck Page A

until even the pocked lad who was always so ready did not know where to look, so that he turned his eyes this way and that and moved his feet and gnawed his fingernail. Then Wang the Second said in apology,
    “It is true they are but two poor things, my brother, and we are grieved that we had none more meet for your kindness. But my elder brother’s eldest son is chiefest heir, and the one after this one is a hunchback, and this pocked one is my eldest and my next but a child, and so these two are the best we have for the time.”
    Then Wang the Tiger, having seen what they were, told a soldier to lead the lads into a side room and let them eat their meat there, and they were not to come again unless he called for them. The soldier led them away then, but the son of Wang the Eldest cast piteous looks back at his uncle and Wang the Tiger seeing him waver like this called,
    “Why do you linger?”
    Then the lad stopped and said in his feeble way, “But am I not to have my box?”
    Wang the Tiger looked then and saw the fine pigskin box beside the door and he said with some measure of contempt,
    “Take it, but it will be no use to you for you shall strip off those robes and get into the good stout clothes that soldiers wear. Men cannot fight in silk robes!” The lad turned clay-colored at this and went without a word and the two brothers were left alone.
    For a long time Wang the Tiger sat in silence, for he was never one to make talk for courtesy’s sake, and at last Wang the Second asked him,
    “What is it of which you think so deeply? Is it something about our sons?”
    Then Wang the Tiger said slowly, “No, except I thought how that most men so old as I am have sons of their own growing up and it must be a very comforting sight to a man.”
    “Why, so might you have them if you had wed soon enough,” said Wang the Second, smiling a little. “But we did not know where you were for so long and my father did not know either and he could not wed you as he would have. But my brother and I will do it willingly, and the money for it is there when you need it for such a thing.”
    But Wang the Tiger put the thought from him resolutely and he said,
    “No, it will seem strange to you, but I do not stomach a woman. It is a strange thing but I have never seen a woman—” and he broke off there for the serving man came in with meats, and the brothers said no more.
    When they had eaten and the dishes were taken away again and tea was brought Wang the Second made ready to ask what thing it was that Wang the Tiger wished to do with all his silver and with these lads, but he did not know how to begin to ask it, and before he had decided on a skillful way, Wang the Tiger said suddenly,
    “We are brothers. You and I understand each other. I depend on you!”
    And Wang the Second drank some tea and then he said cautiously and mildly,
    “Depend upon me you may, since we are brothers, but I should like to know what your plan is so that I can know what I am to do for you.”
    Then Wang the Tiger leaned forward and he said in a great whisper and his words rushed out fast and his breath was like a hot wind blowing into Wang the Second’s ear,
    “I have loyal men about me, a good hundred and more, and they are all weary of this old general! I am weary, too, and I long for my own country and I never want to see one of these little yellow southern men again. Yes, I have loyal men! At my sign they will march out with me in the dead of a certain night. We will make for the north where the mountains are, and we will march to the far north before we entrench ourselves to make a war of revolution if this old general comes after us. But he may not stir—he is so old and so sunken in his eating and drinking and his women, except that among my hundred are his best and strongest men, men not of the south but out of fiercer, braver tribes!”
    Now Wang the Second had always been a small and peaceful man, a merchant, and while he knew there was