"Yes?" replied Mirandolet. "Many years. India—Burmah—China!"
"You know these Easterns, mister, and their little way?" suggested Melky. "Now, would it be too much—I don't want to get no professional information, you know, if it ain't etiquette!—but would it be too much to ask you if them folks is pretty good hands at poisoning?"
Mirandolet laughed, showing a set of very white teeth, and glared at Ayscough with a suggestion of invitation to join in his amusement. He clapped Melky on the shoulder as if he had said something diverting.
"Good hands, my young friend?" he exclaimed. "The very best in the world! Past masters! Adepts. Poison you while they look at you!"
"Bit cunning and artful about it, mister?" suggested Melky.
"Beyond your conception, my friend," replied Mirandolet. "Unless I very much mistake your physiognomy, you yourself come of an ancient race which is not without cunning and artifice—but in such matters as you refer to, you are children, compared to your Far East folk."
"Just so, mister—I believe you!" said Melky, solemnly. "And—which of 'em, now, do you consider the cleverest of the lot—them as you say you've lived amongst, now? You mentioned three lots of 'em, you know—Indians, Burmese, Chinese. Which would you consider the artfullest of them three—if it came to a bit of real underhand work, now?"
"For the sort of thing you're thinking of, my friend," answered Mirandolet, "you can't beat a Chinaman. Does that satisfy you?"
