By Proxy Author:James Payn Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: "I mean to see it," said Pennicuick, confidently; "so here goes." "Good Heavens, man, it's the chief-priest himself." But before he had finished his senten... more »ce, Pennicuick had already presented himself before that august individual. CHAPTER IV. The Shay-le. It was Arthur Conway's habit on touching foreign soil to begin to make himself acquainted as far as possible with the language of its inhabitants, and he had given all the greater attention to the Chinese tongue on account of its supreme difficulty; perhaps he now knew nearly as much about it as an Englishman expensively educated at one of our public schools knows of the Continental languages when he returns from his first tour; he could ask a few questions—after the fashion of the dialogue-books—and procure for himself the necessaries of life, and he could understand what was said to him pretty well. He exceedingly disapproved of his friend's having anything to say—or rather to gesticulate—to the high-priest of Ay- tum-foo, but he was too loyal to leave him in the lurch; and therefore he hastened to the spot where that enormously important ecclesiastic and his friend were by this time standing together; the former bowing slightly in the urbane national manner, and the latter pronouncing the word "Shay-le, Shay-le," in as insinuating a tone as he could compass. There is always this difficulty in dealing with theBuddhist priest (which cynics may say is not wholly confined to ecclesiastics of that persuasion), namely, that although he may be one of the most venerable and pious of human beings, it may also happen that he may be very much the reverse of all this, and indeed a most superlative scoundrel. The reason of this is that some persons embrace the sacred profession from the most secular of reasons. The comple...« less