“I’ve met him once. And I know something of him⁠—not quite as much as I should like to. But it surprises me that anyone else in England should even have heard of him. He’s a great man in his way⁠—mandarin class and all that, you know⁠—but that’s not the crux of the matter. There’s good reason to suppose that he’s the man behind it all.”

“Behind what?”

“Everything. The worldwide unrest, the labour troubles that beset every nation, and the revolutions that break out in some. There are people, not scaremongers, who know what they are talking about, and they say that there is a force behind the scenes which aims at nothing less than the disintegration of civilization. In Russia, you know, there were many signs that Lenin and Trotsky were mere puppets whose every action was dictated by another’s brain. I have no definite proof that would count with you, but I am quite convinced that this brain was Li Chang Yen’s.”

“Oh, come,” I protested, “isn’t that a bit far-fetched? How would a Chinaman cut any ice in Russia?”