Student L. went early on his way to an interview with the district superintendent. The student's excitement imparted speed, and happiness added grace to his quick steps along the path bordering the principal thoroughfare. Father L. had received word that a tutor's post had opened in the household of one of the provincial capital's most important families. He knew that his son was the best scholar in the district, perhaps in his young generation, and had obtained an appointment for the lad with Superintendent G, the man in charge of filling the position. Father L did not know, but should have surmised that the wily superintendent already had manoeuvred one of his own progeny into the prestigious post, and so had no intention of being deprived of such a prize by however many qualifications or whatever merit Student L might possess. The determined student, although not insensitive to intrigue, had little taste for it; and had decided to risk an assault upon the influential office after concluding that his probable alternative was conscription into the army.

None of this prevented Student L from noticing that early morning light left pleasantly unresolved a dual perspective of an object in a distant field. In the horizontal the thing was a hay barrow with two handles poking behind, interpreted in the vertical it was a buffalo with polished horns. Nor did the student fail to observe that the elevated path he followed skimmed above centuries' debris, how the crumbled remains of old paving could be inferred from mounds in the beaten earth below, and how each turn in the walkway minimised a traveller's efforts. It seemed to him that an ancient stream must have carved this passage through the landscape in the first place. The young man walked apace.

Superintendent G received Student L. in one of the great halls that enshrined his function. He sat in a chair next to a table untidy with documents, and scratched his chin with the neat end of a plume as the student stood before him. For a time, the

official took the lad's measure in silence, then peremptorily began an interrogation whose design was to confound and entangle the respondent, thereby summarily clearing him from the concerns of Superintendent G as a fly is blown from a branch or flicked into a web.

"From what cave can a whisper be heard in all corners of the land?" asked the official.

"A whisper in the ear of an imperial courtier resounds as far as the empire extends," was the even reply. "The time it takes to echo from the frontiers is a measure of the centre's reach," added the student. The official frowned.

"You confuse topology with influence over men," he declared.

"Honoured sir, both are questions of proximity," responded the student.

The official looked aside.

"Deficient in geography," he shrugged. "Let us proceed. Two starving wolves in a forest fall upon a lamb large enough to feed but one of them. Were they to fight over the lamb it would escape; should one wolf kill, then try to devour the lamb it would be set upon by the other. What can be done?"

"No lamb could stray far into the forest alone," answered the student. "The wolves must cripple the lamb, and carry it to within hearing distance of the shepherd. While the shepherd runs distracted to the bleating lamb, each wolf can cull a fat ewe from the flock."

"That is at once devilish and cruel," said the official with distaste.

"Such is the way of wolves," observed the student. Superintendent G shook his head slowly, then announced with the tone of his voice that the next question would be the last.

"At the hunts peak, the princes favourite hawk has seized the prey, but circles the sky rather than returning to its master. How does the prince bring it to hand?"

"With an arrow through its heart, honoured sir," replied the student.

The official started.

"Conceited oaf," he shouted in anger.

"I mean no disrespect," said the student, bowing his head. "I think only that no matter how glorious, how beautiful the princes proud hunter, it is preferable to have it killed cleanly in defiances first flight, than fouled by disobedience." The official narrowed his eyes, as if to conceal the swift, as yet uncertain course of his thought. The student prepared to beg leave of his better. Superintendent G stood, turned to his table and brushed with the plume upon a parchment. He thumped the flattened roll with a seal before clapping it into the hands of student L.

"The position is yours. Take this," he ordered the student. As the astonished youth bowed out of the hall, the official leaned over the table to collect some scattered sheaves. Superintendent G knew full well that barring success in this interview, the occupation reserved for the applicant was that of a soldier. He did not want, ten years hence, to come across this scholars mind hardened by service in arms and wielding an officers command. The functionarys own family would have other occasions to benefit from its patriarchs office.

Superintendent G had a sense of terrain, and knew when heaven and earth had carved a path through the middle ground reserved to men. He had sufficient sense to let nature take her course.