“Can you use a Sword?”
“Yes! What is it?”
“Hist, boy! Jump up and dress.”
“Oh, it’s you, father!” said the newly aroused sleeper, slipping out of bed—or, rather, off his bed, for the heat of an Eastern China night had made him dispense with bedclothes.
He made a frantic dash at his trousers, feeling confused and strange in the darkness, and hardly knowing whether he was dreaming or awake, as he whispered:
“Is anything...
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