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One of the Yellow Robes recited a monotonous Chant
got 'em in. But they appeared to think Shan or me was a sort of financial manager that managed worldly affairs mysterious like. They said: "Why should the holy be troubled? All things are one." I thought they were pretty near right, but I didn't see much advantage to it. I thought it was an all-round discouraging statement. It was the oneness of things that was tiresome. But they didn't seem to see it that way. I strolled around and thought it over. Then I says, "Lend me one of them robes."
"'"But," says they, "it is the garment of the phongyee. You are not a holy one."
"'"Think not?" says I. "Right again. Any kind of a blanket will do."
"'They gave me a blue cotton sheet, and recommended I go and sit three or four weeks in the pagoda and consider that all things are one. All right. I squatted every day before each of those bronze individuals, and remarked to each about fifty times that all things were one, till it seemed to me every one of 'em was thinking that identical thing too, same as me, and every one of 'em had the same identical and balmy smile over it, same as each other.
"'"Take it on the whole," thinks I, "that's a singular coincidence." After three or four weeks I says, "All things are one," and felt about it the same way as they looked. There was no getting away from the amicableness of 'em. So far so good. Then I went out and strolled around. Lot of yellow monks living over by the west wall, that pass the time meditating on selected subjects and teaching school. Monks,—why,—monks, now, is the mildest lot of old ladies going. The institution furnishes two meals a day, but they all go into the city mornings with begging-bowls, to give people a chance to acquire merit by charity. Then they come back and give away what they've collected to poverty collected at the gate. In that way they acquire merit for themselves. Economical, ain't it? Then I saw how old Lo Tsin felt. He admired the economy of it, anyway. I guess he admired it all round. Stood pat by his own temple, he did, and then got himself buried there. The thing give him a soft spot in the head.
"Now they think I'm a sort of an abbot. Blamed if folks don't come in from everywhere to show me a cut finger and discuss their sinfulness; and if Nan's mother ain't mad because the temple keeps putting her off with girls, then little Kiyi's got the fever and chills. Always something to worry about. But a man can always go over to the pagoda and tell 'em, "All things are one," and
