Chapter 67

On an early-autumn forenoon, a cool wind stirred the strings of red salvia that lined the official road on both sides at Baiquan Mountain. The flowers were none too pretty, but they'd grown, for a rarity, into a mass, spreading anyhow, until they bullied all other color clean off the old street, and there was nothing left but their own thriving red.

The days had gone by without a ripple, drifting careless and easy from spring on into autumn. And of late Granny took often to saying that the little lightning-blasted one had a good appetite now, and could eat three of her own portions at one meal.

Hearing it, Qi Qian'er measured herself against the doorframe a few times over, and sure enough she'd grown tall in a way she'd never been before. And even her little chest was no whit behind Zhang Wanru's now.

Last night Qi Qian'er had come by the whole set of cordyceps-patterned burnt-blue silver ornaments Chen Dasheng had wheedled out of Yanjing. And her flower-bud sixteenth year was not a thing to be let slip, dress well now, or one day be sorry.

And so today Qi Qian'er changed into a new plain-purple silk skirt, with a plain, light gauze of misty color over it. Her jet-black hair she'd done into a simple, slightly-high married-woman's bun, and set in the middle of it a dainty flower-comb, with two silver butterflies on the left and, on the right, one more with wings folded resting upon the flower. At her ears she wore plain-flower burnt-silver studs, and on the one wrist a pair of slim cordyceps burnt-blue bracelets. And at the last she hung a matching set of burnt-silver step-pendants at her waist, and rubbed on a little scented balm, and touched on a spot of rouge for color. And, dressed, she turned twice about by the edge of the kang.

Qi Qian'er paid no heed to the old lady's sour carping, the old grow to hate youth. She understood.

Picking out from the row of brocade boxes at the head of the kang a plain kesi round-fan to match her clothes, Qi Qian'er, not hot at all, waved the fan and winked at the old lady: "Off we go, off we go! Out to play!"

The old lady gave a snort, and beckoned to her: "Come here." And when Qi Qian'er had come: "No eye for it, you~ lower your head!" And she reached out and pushed the little butterfly pin a touch forward, and said: "That's the deft way of it. You can't dress yourself at all! Hmph~ go on! Go on!"

Watching Qi Qian'er hop off to the door and look back at her, she shooed her as though she couldn't be rid of her fast enough: "Off you go, quick! You circling before my eyes all day wearies me to death! You go and play, and I'll not sit at home either! I'll go up the mountain by and by to find my old sister."

The old sister the old lady spoke of was, in fact, Dowager Jiang, out of the palace and living up on Baiquan Mountain, and by now the head and leader of the Quanhou Street old ladies' incense-outings.

More than that, every so often she'd get herself up in disguise and come calling in Quanhou Street. She'd been to the old lady's here, and to Gao-shi's, and even to old Madam Xu's. No one dared so much as imagine that the reigning Dowager wandered about at large. They only took her for some wealthy old lady who knew everything, and understood the doctrines of the Buddha, and was open and easy of mind, and they held her in great respect.

Dowager Jiang had never in her life made herself a friend of her own age by her own doing. And so, once out and about a few times, there was no stopping her, every so often she'd preside over an incense-gathering, or a tea-party, or a telling of immortal-tales.

Her days being so good now, the Emperor too was glad and much comforted. And he dared not go exposing her, but quietly set men to guard her, and was grateful in his heart to Chen's old lady besides.

Qi Qian'er came out of the old court with Fourth-Moon and Fifth-Moon, and saw Zhang Wanru waiting for people at the door.

Zhang Wanru was handsome today too. A bride not yet a hundred days out of her wedding, she was in a soft, bright jacket-and-skirt of peach-blossom red, her hair in a coiled-serpent bun with a flower-shaped hair-swayer set in it, and behind her came her two dowry-maids, Xuemei and Hongmei, her two plum-blossoms.

Seeing Qi Qian'er come out, Xuemei and Hongmei quickly helped their own mistress down the steps. And coming up, they made their courtesy: "Peace to the Big Madam."

Zhang Wanru looked Qi Qian'er up and down, and pursed her lips and mocked her on purpose: "Little sister-in-law's a proper boy most days. How is it she's willing to make herself up today?" That said, she braced a hand on her knee and made her bow. And Qi Qian'er returned it, then said, smug: "When people go and eagerly send a body such things, then a body's got a right to be pleased with herself, hasn't she? That you've got on is fetching too, dowry, is it? I had no fine dowry. All I've got is folk that keep me in mind. Go, and tell that fool of yours to learn how his big brother does it, let him know what real quickness is, so he'll go buy you some too."

Zhang Wanru put on a mournful face on purpose, and sighed: "Aiyo~ can't afford it, can't afford it! The whole house waits on the master's five hundred cash to live! You mustn't bully honest poor folk. We're poor as poor can be! Why, if I want so much as an egg to eat, I must keep watch at the back yard and beg my cocks' good grace."

Zhang Wanru liked to keep white chickens to paint. And the white chickens she'd given the cheeky by-name of "cocks."

Qi Qian'er gave a snort, and swept the fan before her: "Quick, take your account-book off my hands. I can't be bothered to keep it!"

But Zhang Wanru wasn't to be caught. Small an office as her natal family held, they were a house of generations of officials, with means behind them. Her mother alone had readied her five hundred mu of land, and given her ten thousand strings to lie at the bottom of her trunk, and there were the old Yanjing shopfronts besides, she was far too lazy to take on her husband's little patch of ground.

The two young sisters-in-law came, talking and laughing, up to the front of the lane. And Xiaodun, keeping watch at the gate there, saw the two madams come out and ran off gladly into the court to carry word.

Before long, Ding Yuniang, in a vermilion jacket-and-skirt, a gold pin, a gold bracelet on her wrist, was helped out by Yu Dani, who was in a shot-color silk skirt, her maiden's double buns set round with a ring of little palace-flowers.

In a few short months this mother and daughter had both put on flesh, and grown fairer. There was still some cast of the old bone-structure not yet shed, but let a person be glad, and all awkwardness is dissolved away.

Decked in gold and silver, and all colors of the rainbow, they were a fine sight indeed!

The sisters-in-law being on good terms, they greeted one another first with their courtesies. And, seeing the Yu granny standing in the court, held up by Auntie Shi and watching the gate as eagerly as the rest, Qi Qian'er and Zhang Wanru made the old lady their bow, and then said, gesturing behind them: "Wait a little, old lady. My granny's not done dressing. We've had them yoke your cart ready. Set your heart at ease~ we'll not leave you behind, we'll surely take you out to play."

The Yu granny was a shade abashed, and hastened to explain: "I know, I know! You go and play, you go and play, I'm in no hurry, no hurry..."

So she said. But the old lady still watched the gate eagerly, the young sisters had all come, and that dratted old lady of theirs was slow as could be.

When the three sisters-in-law and the elder niece had gone but a few steps off, the old lady, uneasy, leaned at the doorpost and called: "Dani, did you bring silver? You mustn't let your aunt go spending money on you out there again!"

Dani had learned her letters and her manners by now, and knew that to speak so was not the thing. But she minded the little aunt too, one mustn't cramp the old, but let them have their way. So she took no offense, but turned smiling and patted the little purse at her waist and said, loud: "Granny, I've brought it!"

"How much did you bring?"

"Two taels!"

"Ah? You brought that much, then, then you're not to go spending it wild!"

"Oh, I understand."

Truly, each had her own companion, and each her own kinfolk. And Guard Lane, for all it was but a dozen-odd households, lived, for a rarity, as one family. And which of the folk of the other six Board-lanes did not envy them? Even one's own born kin were not always so warm to one another as these.

And besides, the whole knot of former small-official women, the like of Lü-shi and Gao-shi, were forever gathered outside gossiping, and in their talk, one way and another, there was not one but praised the several madams of Guard Lane.

Ah, yes, and at the tail of Guard Lane there was still Madam Qiao. That flock of women, out of regard for the old lady and Qi Qian'er, didn't speak ill of her either. They only said she was weak in the body and no lover of going out, and no one asked after her, nor so much as mentioned her, but treated her as though she were not there at all. And so Madam Qiao had, strangely, sunk out of sight in Quanhou Street, and no one saw her anymore.

These sisters-in-law had real business out of the house today, too. Zhang Wanru's mother, Dong-shi, had bridged a match, the tenth sister, Pan Shiqiao, of the house of Censor Pan of the Huayang Circuit, in the Censorate. And the sisters-in-law were off to the Little Immortal Garden in Yanjing, to view a bride for Ma Ergu.

Over this Pan Shiqiao, Qi Qian'er had truly spent no little thought. She'd no connection in Yanjing, and no circle of civil-official wives to move in. But in her last life this "Ten-Abacus" had slapped the faces of every official, high and low, of the Board of Works, and one way or another Qi Qian'er meant to have her home into the family.

As for this Pan Shiqiao, it was a long tale. Her house was merchant-stock: eight generations of shrewd calculators, every hair on their heads bent through eight turns.

And it was from this house of eight generations of tradesmen, so close-fisted they'd have picked up a fart dropped on the ground, dusted it off, and eaten it back, that there came, of all things, a reading-seedling who could sit the examinations and hold office.

And for this reading-seedling, old Censor Pan's father had made over the whole of the family fortune to Commander Yang's great army, and bought his son a civil post. And the son proved worthy, and rose in one stretch to be a Censor of the full seventh rank.

Scorn not the seventh rank as a small office: the Censorate is a place of real power, and carries no little official weight. And, besides, the Pan being merchant-stock could never have entered the ranks of the officials at all, it was only that Commander Yang was short of money and let the Pan house leap up at a bound, and change their gate thenceforth. The whole Pan house had been satisfied to the very death of it.

But in the new dynasty the Pan house fell into a pit deeper than any before. And for no other reason than this, the Pan house had grown poor, and had twelve daughters.

After Censor Pan was born, old Master Pan had wanted to add him a younger brother for a prop. But who could have foreseen it, his wife and his three concubines together, over ten years, popped out one flower, and popped out another flower, and popped out two flowers, and added to Censor Pan a round dozen, twelve, younger sisters.

With so many daughters, and all of them reared and grown, that account-clicking old Master Pan bethought himself to get his capital back, and, well! In Yanjing he was as set in his ways as ever: married a daughter off with no dowry at all, and, more than that, held back the half of her bride-price besides.

And this trapped his twelve daughters, so that each was married to a lower gate than the last, until the year Censor Pan, over the water-works of the Huayang Circuit that were in his charge, ran into trouble, and was counter-accused and thrown into jail. Old Master Pan, to save his son, beat the Grievance Drum and laid an imperial complaint. And Pan Shiqiao alone came forth out of the women's quarters, and, on the strength of a few clue-bearing account-books her brother had left, cleared her brother's wrong in open court.

Before the very gate of the Board of Works she reckoned accounts two-handed, and forced the black gauze caps off some twenty-odd officials of the Board's Water Bureau.

And so she came by her by-name, "Ten-Abacus". For at reckoning and at keeping accounts that girl was fearsome, ten seasoned old counting-house men put together were no match for her. Hard as the Pan daughters had been to marry off already, the pretty Pan Shiqiao, having shown this hand of hers, had got herself a name for scheming and a name for fierceness besides, and had ended, at the last... an old maid that no one dared marry.

And what stinking thing was the house's own Ma Ergu, then? Mm, not a bad man, and kindly. But a great muddlehead of the first water! These several had studied their books how long now, and he still got his count in a tangle past a hundred.

To Qi Qian'er's thinking, a muddlehead paired with an abacus was a match made in heaven! And so these sisters-in-law swore up and down as they left the lane, that they'd have that abacus-bead of the old Pan house pried loose and home whatever it cost.

Qi Qian'er's ambitions ran large, and she'd too many matters in hand. Ding Yuniang need only sit and live to a ripe old age, and they'd all chant the Buddha's name for gladness. Zhang Wanru had the receiving and dealing of Guard Lane's eight households in her charge. And as for the rich widow Meng Wanquan had been chasing in Qingfeng, that was a thing without so much as a shadow to it yet, and she'd no hopes of that one. Thinking of the several manors she'd quietly bought up besides, out in the provinces, Qi Qian'er felt that unless she got this Ten-Abacus home, she'd not be able to live easy.

And, having secretly sworn herself another vow, Qi Qian'er, leaving the lane, idly lifted a corner of the cart-curtain and glanced out, eh?

For she'd dimly seen Madam Qiao, carrying her son on her back, leading Xique by the hand, and a great basket on her arm? Her son not a hundred days out, and here was this woman darting about? Seeing the carriage of the very people she most hated come along, Madam Qiao gave the road and lowered her head, and made a show of tidying her daughter's hair, and played at not having seen.

Qi Qian'er let the curtain fall and raised a brow: here was one who strove and pushed on too, a pity that her former husband's family had, to this day, given her no writ of divorce, and still wrote her letters forever, demanding money in the name of the child left behind in her former nest. Fearing this sharp-tongued Qi Qian'er, and with a guilty heart besides, Madam Qiao dared not go scheming over at the old lady's now, but only ate the bitter fruit of it, and had lost all the flavor of a human being.

Regret it or not, and even if she did regret it, what of that?

Hmph... the days were long yet.

And Chen Siniu now was not what he'd been, that he could still scrape the oil off his nephews. He ate great bitterness on the mountain now, and to earn a little silver was no easy thing. And Madam Qiao's days were none too good. She grudged even hiring a woman to help through her lying-in.

But she was a capable one, when all was said. With no old Madam Tao now to light her way in life, she'd, by a roundabout road, under the Tang house's theater-stage, come to know Wen-shi, the third madam of the Yang house of the Board of Rites lane.

And this Wen-shi was the very enemy that Qi Qian'er, in two lifetimes both, would never let go easy.

This too, one might reckon, was Old Heaven's own arranging: that this pair of jackal and wolf should meet, and as for what should come of it thereafter, why, the days were long yet...

Madam Qiao stood at the roadside, and it was only when the train of carts had gone well off that she dared lift her eyes. And in this woman's heart, of course, a wildfire burned, and she was jealous near to madness.

But there was nothing to be done.

In her heart, that turtle-grandson of the house next door was high of eye. And Chen the Fourth was a good-for-nothing, guilty of heart, who could put on no elder's face before his own nephew, let the nephew but cough, and he'd lie awake half the night over it, wondering what in the world the nephew had meant by it. With no leaning on the man, and having got herself a son besides, Madam Qiao loved the child past all reason, and redoubled her effort, and quietly wormed and schemed.

Madam Qiao and Wen-shi, the third daughter-in-law of Master Yang, the vice-magistrate of Qingfeng prefecture, grew closer and closer. But Madam Qiao's standing being what it was, she went a rank below everyone in all she did, and dared not let it be known that she had dealings with the Yang house, for fear the talk should get about and they'd look down on her.

Carrying her son, leading her daughter, her basket on her arm, Madam Qiao slipped furtively into the Board of Rites lane, and went the whole length of it to the tail. And the little steward of the Yang third branch, who sat at the Yang gate, stood up smiling, and came at a trot to Madam Qiao and took her basket from her: "The Fourth Madam's here! Our madam sent out word first thing this morning that you'd be coming."

The basket was heavy. Her burden handed off, Madam Qiao was eased at heart. Not a hundred days past her lying-in, she was wronged at every turn. And Wen-shi's one kindness in this she was grateful for past all measure.

As Madam Qiao came in at the gate, the two or three doorkeepers on the long bench at the Yang gate all stood up, and made their smiling bows in a string. Madam Qiao had her airs now, and, half-heeding them and half not, went on in.

When she'd gone well past, one steward who'd sat unmoving in a corner stood up, and, his face full of hate, spat after her, and muttered under his breath: "What a thing!"

Had Qi Qian'er been there, she'd have known him at a glance: this steward was the very one she'd cursed off from the chessboard court. That day, having lost the chessboard court, he'd turned round and seized, in one grab, two two-court houses at the tail of the Board of Rites lane. And when his lord, Yang Shisheng, the vice-magistrate of Qingfeng, came up from Shaoshang with three generations of his household, and saw it was two whole courtyards, he was well pleased, and even rewarded the steward, and praised him for handling the matter so cleverly.

Madam Qiao followed the little steward in by the side-door of the front main court, five bays broad, and into a side-court. And as she went, Madam Qiao envied it all, and thought in her heart: only look at the courtyard of a fifth-grade vice-magistrate's house, look at the grandeur of it, look at the servants...

She had nothing at all. Even to look at the old lady's courtyard she must sneak up a ladder and peer over furtively, and let the old lady catch her at it once, and it was a cursing head and face once. Now that that side had its old-women and maids too, Madam Qiao, who loved her face and loved to keep up appearances, dared not go looking any longer.

And so she had never even seen what the courtyards of Qi Qian'er and the rest, whom she feared most, so much as looked like. The greatest wealth she'd set eyes on in this life was this vice-magistrate Yang's house. And each time she came she envied it afresh, and yearned after it past all telling.

The vice-magistrate Yang's dwelling was two five-bay two-court courts. Its ground, in truth, was no small thing.

The court Madam Qiao made for was the very last, where she sought her friend Wen-shi, the vice-magistrate's third daughter-in-law.

She'd no sooner come into the court than she heard, from within it, a scolding voice: "You thousand-cut, low-wife-bred, wicked thing, no brother-in-law that ever was goes running to his sister-in-law's rooms to flirt with his elder brother's bed-maid..."

Hearing "low-wife," Madam Qiao's heart gave a lurch of fright. And when a man came running out of that court, his face hidden behind a sleeve, she let out a breath, and drew aside. A very tall man, in clothes of kingfisher green, his face not to be made out, and running fast, in a streak he was gone. And only then did two old-women with washing-mallets come charging out of the court, and drive him off like very devils of fury.

Xique took a great fright, and burst out crying. And the little steward who led the way was all shame.

Coming into the court, Madam Qiao saw, standing on the court steps, a big-bellied woman with almond eyes and sharp brows, hands on her hips, pointing at a maid who knelt below the steps, and gleefully in the midst of her scolding: "Are you a breathless corpse, then, you shameless thing, that creature would grope you, and you'd let him?"

The maid kneeling on the ground wept till she was near to swooning. But this woman would not let her be, and called out to her people: "Someone, drag her off to the well and scrub her clean, inside and out! I'll not have her set here to sicken a body!"

Her cry done, the two old-women with washing-mallets came back into the court, and made to drag the maid off. And this woman added: "Scrub her careful, mind you don't scrub the dirty thing in her belly out of her, or the master will take on so, and lay it at my door..."

Madam Qiao had not seen many a proper noble lady in her life. Over on Qi Qian'er's side, even when they punished a servant, they'd never let Madam Qiao see it. And so she thought: this is a mistress of a great house in her majesty.

When the court had been set to rights, this third madam looked round and saw Madam Qiao, and fell to smiling: "Aiya, and what a business it all is, that the Fourth Madam should come in for the joke of it!"

Wen-shi's husband was a seventh-grade lord in a middle county, and had once dined with Chen Siniu. Coming home, he'd mocked Chen Siniu to his wife for a nouveau-riche pauper-pedant, ungraceful in all his dealings. Several times he'd had Chen Siniu introduce him to that wealthy nephew of his, and Chen Siniu would by no means. But what manner of person was Wen-shi? A venomous ghost with eight scheming hearts to her. And after but a few soundings she'd understood it, that this fourth branch of the Chen house had some rift with the other side.

Only, what was that to her? A person come to her door to fawn on her she'd not refuse. She'd only take it for a bit of amusement.

Having watched a scene of horror, Madam Qiao put on a wooden face and made a show of being a woman of wide experience, and followed Wen-shi in. And, taking the son off her back into her arms, sat down on a chair to one side.

The little steward who'd led the way handed the basket to an old-woman, and the old-woman carried the basket in and set it on the table beside Madam Qiao. And Madam Qiao, as though reminded of something, gave an "Ah!" and said: "Look at my memory!"

She pointed at the basket and said to Wen-shi: "This is what my master had someone send down from the mountain. I thought the things rather rare, so I picked out the best of them for you to taste. You're carrying a child now, and ought to eat a few good things."

Seeing that Madam Qiao had not come empty-handed, Wen-shi fell to smiling: "Aiyo~ my sister! You truly, come, and it's enough that you come. What's all this for? As if our house wanted for this little of yours?"

Madam Qiao, learning it silently, put away her fright and made a show of briskness: "Yours is yours. But these things, little as they may be worth, there's nowhere to buy them now. Have a quick look. And if you don't care for them, why, I'll just take them back again..."

Wen-shi snorted a laugh, and nodded to the old-woman at her side. And the woman took up the basket and carried it before Wen-shi to see.

Wen-shi bent her head to look, and was truly delighted. For within were three cloth-bags of mountain delicacies: peach-gum, monkey-head mushroom, bamboo-fungus, three things not to be had for a coin or two. And, more than that, one look and these were top ware, such as not even the old dealers of Yanjing could always turn up so fine.

By the scheming of Qi Qian'er, of Master She, and of Chen Dasheng, Chen Siniu had been got up onto the mountain and set to hard labor. But the tallying of the tree-species he had in his charge carried some real power with it. And, besides, forever rummaging about the mountains as he was, Chen Siniu had in the end found himself a money-route: on the strength of the court's own manpower, he'd dig out the mountain delicacies and sell them off.

In under half a year Chen Siniu had laid up a little store. And, his eyes gone black with envy at the fields the nephews and the old lady had, and the rich, roomy life they led, and above all at the twenty-odd carts of things the new manor sent up after this autumn's harvest, he was dying of it, but dared not put out a hand. He and Madam Qiao wanted, too, to lay up something solid, for themselves and for their descendants. But they'd asked around, and where at the tail of last year a mu of good land could still be had for five hundred cash. It had gone this year to a string and two hundred.

So Chen Siniu held his money tight now, and gave Madam Qiao no ready cash, but had her carry a few good mountain-delicacies to fawn on Wen-shi, meaning to buy up a little land in the middle county Wen-shi's husband had in his charge.

Watching her own body-servant put the mountain-delicacies away, Wen-shi asked Madam Qiao, smiling: "The things I had them send over to you, sister, a few days back, did you like them?"

At that a grateful look came over Madam Qiao's face. She reached out and pushed the reluctant Xique forward, and made the child turn about for Wen-shi to see, and said: "It's you that thinks of her! See, she's got them on already!"

Her money went in two shares, one to make up to the former nest, and one for the household's daily spending. And, hard-pressed as she was, the pinch of it fell on the child. This Xique was dressed poorly indeed, the daughter of a seventh-grade lord, and going about all day long in a few suits of old cloth. The old lady, to be sure, felt for Xique. But she'd not show a trace of it before Madam Qiao, only, when Xique came leaning at the door to look for her granny, she'd slip a bite of something into the child's mouth, and no more than that.

Seeing Xique worse-clad than a servant's child, Wen-shi, there was no telling what was in her mind, had gathered together several suits of her own daughters' half-worn silks, and made a great bundle of them, and sent them over to Madam Qiao.

Both being houses of the seventh grade, Wen-shi's doing so was itself a discourtesy, the sort of thing one does in rewarding a household servant. Only, small-household Madam Qiao hadn't the eyes to see it, and had even dressed Xique in them today.

Wen-shi looked at the know-nothing, feel-nothing Madam Qiao, and fell to laughing after all. She reached out and caught up some dried fruit from the table and put it into Xique's hands: "Never mind that I bore four girls, for looks, there's not one of them so pretty as our Xique!" That said, she lifted her head and gave an order: "Someone, take our Xique off to play with her sisters!"

A maid below answered, and came in and led the reluctant Xique away.

The child gone out, Wen-shi reached over and took a soft cushion, and said to Madam Qiao: "Quick, give me my Zhao'er here, let him wet me a good one right in my arms. This time I'll get myself an immortal-child for sure!"

Madam Qiao had no discernment, and of course did not catch the barb in Wen-shi's words. Loath as she was to part with the child, still, for the sake of that little scheme in her own heart, she handed her son over to Wen-shi in the end.

Wen-shi took the fat little boy, and cooed and patted at him, all smiles. And, rocking him to and fro, she said to Madam Qiao, smiling: "Sister, it's not that I'd find fault with you, but this coming-and-going of yours, what kind of state is that? Look, your hundred days not yet out, and it's carrying on your back and holding in your arms. It's truly not seemly. Our Fourth Master's away, and, poor as the house may be, he's a court officer of a sort when all's said. Ought there not to be a woman to help you at home, at the least? I'll not believe it, that old lady next door of yours, when she takes up her bowl, can she even get the food to her own mouth?"

That struck home to Madam Qiao's very heart. And the tears welled up in her eyes on the instant, and, dabbing at them with her handkerchief, she said: "I knew that folk have eyes, and could all see it. And how am I to say this? The Third Madam is come of a great house too, and you have your own hard cases. And my house has things of its own that mayn't be spoken of. My heart aches, and yet I mustn't say half a bad word of my old lady... Ai, say what you will, it's that I'm clumsy of tongue and slow of wit, and win no one's liking. And my master's too honest by half..."