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house and used to the coarsest fare and cotton clothes until my old lord made himself silly in his old age about her white face, and doubtless she wheedled him to it, too—and as for that fool the sooner she is dead the better!”
    This Lotus called out and when Wang the Third heard it he stared at her so terribly that she faltered and turned her head away from his black eyes, and then he shouted out,
    “Let this one be given the same as the old one and I will give it!”
    But Lotus demurred, and although she did not dare to say it loudly, she muttered,
    “It is not meet that elder and younger be treated as one and equal—and she my own slave!”
    So she muttered and it seemed she might fall to her old noise again, and the old merchant seeing this said with all haste,
    “True—true—so I decree twenty-five pieces to the elder lady and twenty to the younger—” And he went out and said to Pear Blossom, “Go back to your house and be at peace again, lady, because you are to do as you will and you shall have twenty silver pieces a month for your own.”
    Then Pear Blossom thanked him prettily and with all her heart and her little pale mouth quivered and she was trembling because she had not known what would happen to her and it was a relief to know she might live on as she had and be safe.
    With these claims ended, then, and the decision made, the rest was not hard and the old merchant went on and he was about to divide lands and houses and silver equally into four parts to give two parts to Wang the Eldest as head of the house, and one part to Wang the Second and one part to Wang the Third when suddenly this third son spoke out,
    “Give me no houses and lands! I had enough of the land when I was a lad and my father would have me be a farmer. I am not wed, and what do I want with a house! Give me my share in silver, my brothers, or else if I must have house and land, then do you, my brothers, buy them from me and give me silver!”
    Now the two older brothers were struck dazed when they heard this, for whoever heard of a man who wanted his whole inheritance in silver, which can escape a man so easily and leave no trace behind, and will not have house and land, which can remain to him for a possession? The elder brother said gravely,
    “But, my brother, no good man in this whole world goes unwed all his life and sooner or later we will find you a woman, since our father is gone, whose duty it was to do it, and you will want house and land then.”
    Then the second brother said very plainly, “Whatever you do with your share of the land we will not buy it from you, for there has been trouble in many a family because one has taken his inheritance in silver and spent it all and then has come howling back, crying out that he is defrauded of lands and inheritance, and the silver is gone then and no proof that it ever was beyond a bit of paper that could be written by anyone or else men’s bare words, and these are no proof. No, and if the man himself does not do this, his sons will and their sons’ sons and it means strife into the generations. I say the land must be divided. If you wish it I will see to your lands for you and send you the silver they bring to you every year, but you shall not have your inheritance in silver.”
    Now the wisdom of this struck everyone, so that although the soldier said again, muttering it, “I will have no house nor land!” no one paid heed to him this time except that the old merchant said curiously,
    “What would you do with so much silver?”
    To this the soldier answered in his harsh voice, “I have a cause!”
    But not one of them knew what he meant and after a time the old merchant decreed that the silver and the lands should be divided and if he truly did not wish a share in this fine town house he might have the old earthen house in the country, which was worth little indeed, seeing it was made out of the earth of the fields at the slight cost of a little labor. He decreed