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Europe for specimens even less important than theirs. The one exception is a man of very high official position, but even he sold me three masterpieces for a sum less than he could have forced me to pay him for the one of the lot of least importance. Some of the others of the twenty bought elsewhere, I have secured for less than 10 percent of their actual European selling value. But even at these modest prices, the number secured along with some magnificent bronze and sculpture made it imperative to have funds promptly in hand-here, in order to get sure delivery, one must pay spot cash - so I cabled you this morning "Superb treasures here "Tignonner 'Teiltres"" (Cable me two thousand pounds sterling through Hongkong Shanghai Bank)".

I am sorry to again trouble you with work of this nature, but you will feel well repaid when you see the objects for which this money is needed.

You will, I trust, issue a demand note in my name with P.D. and Co. stock as security and place it with the Peoples State Bank. Let me now thank you in advance. My large expenditures on this trip seem very extravagant, but the opportunities have proved unique --- and may never occur again. For example, the impressions given to merchants and collectors by Hirth's statement has actually been in the means of withholding practically all thorough search here for Tang and Sung paintings until this week. We are working early and late every day, and the richness of the veins thus far struck makes me wonder what there is in the lower levels! We are not buying gold bricks either, butoften to hide the Sung or Tang masterpiece found in a lot of rubbish, we take the whole bunch, afterwards quietly giving away the worthless stuff. I have hired a couple of rooms in the Tartar City where the natives think I am a buyer for some American Auction house. I allow no one with things to sell, to see me in my hotel, thus preventing the guests in this large and excellent hotel, excepting two or three reliable Americans, to learn my plans or the location of our claims.

It beats California in '49!

I am sorry not to have asked you to send the money through the International Bank, but dared not let the officers of that Bank know of my transactions --- they are American and might be o [[strikethrough]] oever [[/strikethrough]] over-enterprising and spoil my pudding.

As yet I have seen but little of Peking, but the occasional glances have pleased me greatly. In the Tartar City where I spend all of my daylight hours, the scenes surpass those of the bazaars of Cairo and Constantinople and in their dealings the natives are apparently very reliable.