The Moon of Much Gladness E-Book

Ernest Bramah

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

This early work by Ernest Bramah Smith was originally published in 1911. „The Moon of Much Gladness Related by Kai Lung” is the fourth book in the Kai Lung series. The China which Kai Lung inhabits has numerous features of the fantasy Land of Fable, and many of the embedded tales are fantasy; all are told in an ornate manner which ironically, often hilariously, exaggerates the old Chinese tradition of understatement and politesse. Ernest Bramah was born was near Manchester in 1868. He was a poor student, and dropped out of the Manchester Grammar School when sixteen years old to go into the farming business. Bramah found commercial and critical success with his first novel, „The Wallet of Kai Lung”, but it was his later stories of detective Max Carrados that assured him lasting fame.

Leseprobe

Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER I

The imperishable Sovereign of the land and the all-powerful Mandarin T’sin Wong having been duly mentioned, the feeble but conscientious recorder of authentic facts discloses the position affecting those of less importance.

I

IN the reign of the enlightened Emperor Ming Wang (of whose reverence for duty it is written that he invariably reclined upon his back, so that even when asleep neither of his ears should be closed against the upraised voice of the meanest of his subjects calling for justice) there dwelt in the mud-walled city of Kochow a variety of persons who will in due course be brought discreetly forward according to the requirements of those with whose fortunes this ill-delivered narrative is favourably concerned; but towering above all others, as a many-tiered pagoda overtops the meagre residences of the necessitous and unofficial, there must, with a seemly regard for the essential proprieties, at once be announced that high dignitary of the coral button, the Mandarin T’sin Wong.

Having thus complied with the formalities of ceremonial usage, the obsequious-mannered relater of this distressingly inept chronicle would regard it as an act of amiable condescension on the part of those who may have been enticed into purchasing his lamentable effort to be allowed to begin anew from a more convenient angle.

II

FOR a period that was to be counted not by days or moons alone, but even years–and on the elastic authority of the glib and inexact probably unmeasured cycles–the annals of Kochow had been as destitute of pleasurable excitement as a meritorious scholar’s sleeve is devoid of silver, until, in the repulsive apothegm of their kind, the young and gyratory of both sexes might frequently be heard to declare that they were “stagnated to rigidity” by the lack of animation discoverable around.

And, indeed, not to withdraw the plain but wholesome face of truth behind the gilded mask of wanton exaggeration, a full decade had elapsed since the town had last been reduced to ashes by fire or overwhelmed by flood. So effete had become the neighbouring hostile tribes that it was not an uncommon circumstance to meet those of the inner chamber–even of middle-age–who had never been submitted to the experience of rape or forcible abduction, while the periodical visitations of plague, black evil and the pitting sickness had been almost robbed of all their salutary virulence by the short-sighted activities of the impious and interfering. So that, whereas under a more judicious system the elderly, the infirm, and the unremunerative were automatically weeded out by a process that was not only reasonable to themselves but convenient and economical to authority, now by the effervescing of a grain of magic powder on the tongue or the scratching of a cryptic emblem about the forearm even a river-pirate or a hungry beggar might not unreasonably cherish the ambition of outliving those so careful of their skin as even to hire others to perform their recreations for them, and so wealthy as to be able to overeat themselves whenever they had the inclination. Truly it was not so in the virile days of the puissant Hwang, when all men below a certain rank were measured with an iron rule, and shortened or lengthened as the case required.

Thus may the internal state of Kochow be positioned on the first day of the Moon of Much Gladness, that being the time selected by the lesser Deities concerned as a fitting moment for the initiation of their somewhat elaborate purpose, and therefore the one chosen by this scrupulous but uninventive historian as the one most suitable for opening his badly arranged if surprisingly developed recital of events.

III

CONSIDERING the remoteness of the epoch, the size and importance of walled Kochow, the position and authority of the dignified Mandarin T’sin Wong and the undoubted deference that would certainly be paid to his illustrious spirit when at last he had condescended to Pass Above, it was only to be expected that the calamitous act that was to prove the fountain- head from which ultimately proceeded the full river of event should be presaged by celestial hints and omens of unmistakable significance. Whether these took the form of contending dragons in the sky, unnatural noises arising from the Beneath Parts, fiery visitations traversing space, or some other of the recognized signs usual in such an emergency, is clouded with a slight textual ambiguity in the pages of the Epics. Thus positioned, even though engaged upon a work of biographical exactness, it is more convenient (as is now, indeed, the common usage) to refer definitely to the conversation and manner of behaving of ordinary persons then alive, and these, in spite of the distinction of moving in so classical an era, would seem providentially to have conducted themselves in a manner not appreciably different from our own.

IV

IT so chanced that at this period one of the appointed guarders of the Ways–they who by means of hollow drums, sonorous shells and the interspersal of an occasional cry of menace warn thieves and other loiterers of evil habit that it is time for them to withdraw in safety–was kinsman to the chief custodian of the Mandarin’s door. Respecting the claims of blood, it was the habit of this club-bearing official to investigate anything of a doubtful nature taking place in the neighbourhood of the yamen at about the gong-stroke when the janitor might perchance be abroad in the exercise of his several duties, and should they happen to encounter none but an outcast would have abstained from the rite of a mutual greeting with, if it could be prudently effected, the ceremonial exchange of appropriate vessels. A tea-house known by the Sign of Well- Sustained Endurance was enticingly positioned.

“Greeting, son of my father’s brother!” cried each, striking their hands when they had thus come together. “Are all your constituents well balanced?” But when the guarder of the Ways (on whom the name Ah-Fang had been bestowed at teething) would have suggested by a convenient movement of the wrist that they should partake of what he described as “the habitual,” the other (Shun- Ho his style on going forth to work, their common Line being Cheung) raised a dissenting gesture.

“For,” he said, indicating the gate that was within his office, “a special task has been laid upon me, and, as the proverb rightly says, ‘A single date consumed in peace is better than a basket of ripe figs beneath the shadow of affliction.’”

“That may be true enough as regards figs, which–especially when over-ripe–lie qualmous on a craving stomach,” admitted the other. “Yet touching ourselves, it being no part of our intention to consume matter of a solid nature–”

“Nevertheless,” interrupted Shun-Ho, who, having failed in the examinations at the outset of his career, was of a slightly superior culture to his kinsman, “the pith of the saying has a general application. Join now your hand to mine and our delay will be the sooner ended.”

“What is the motive of this stress, and why should we labour to throw back these massive gates that are so rarely opened?” inquired Ah-Fang, as he carefully laid aside his fan and umbrella before thrusting his loin against the beam as Shun-Ho directed. “Does some important noble pay a ceremonial visit?”

“By no means,” was the reply; “those for whom way is thus made are of a very different bacon. A misbegotten zeal for innovation has possessed the Vermilion Pencil and an edict has gone forth that henceforward between the time of light and no-light the gates of every yamen throughout the land shall stand freely open.”

“If that is the case why should we, having fully complied with what is called for, now fix a spiked barrier across the path of any who would enter?” demanded Ah-Fang as he lent his aid to his kinsman’s further purpose.

“Nothing is said in the proclamation about spiked barriers,” replied Shun-Ho capably, “and to leave the passage open would be to invite the intrusion of a procession of the needy and undeserving.... Wind a few more lengths of this barbed chain about the farther column and our seclusion will be reasonably protected.”

“You have only to command a thing and it is done,” said the docile Fang, complying. “Yet who among our suppliant throng would have ventured to encroach here, well knowing as they do the merit of the saying, ‘Keep from before an angry bull, from behind a startled pole-cat, but as far as possible in all directions from a high official’?”

“That is as it may have been in the past, but by this printed notice–which under very severe penalties it is ordained must be displayed upon the gate-post–a new era is instituted. Henceforth, one and all are incited to press forward with their several pleas, and under its terms a very superfluity of justice is foreshadowed.”

“What next?” grumbled Ah-Fang, “this being the extremest measure. In the virtuous days of this person’s youth integrity endured, and the people were encouraged to abide at peace by fining equally both parties to a suit and reprimanding the several witnesses with bamboo rods, of a thickness depending on the length of the testimony they offered. In future all–but how shall the terms of the edict spread abroad if its written surface is thus nailed to the gate-post?”

“That,” replied Shun-Ho, driving in a final skewer, “lies outside our plain instruction. ‘The sheet displayed for all to see,’ runs the tenor of our orders–and he who can overlook so visible a parchment should have his eyes properly scraped without delay at the stall of the nearest barber. Come, brother, we have upheld rightful authority as befits our own positions: none but a niggard would deny us a scanty respite.”

“We have done all that sincere men could: to have done more would be to prove us demons,” agreed Ah-Fang. “I sustain thy weary shoulder.”

V

WHEN they were seated, each with a cup of a special flavour, and had released their waist-cloths, mutual confidence prevailed and neither forbore to speak freely of the shortcomings of those in authority above them.

“It is scarcely to be imagined that one so deficient in refined understanding as the lesser captain of our band–he of whose ill-arranged face and gravity-dispelling gait I have already spoken–should distribute honours to those who most deserve them,” remarked Ah-Fang. “Were it not that mankind is endowed with two ears and but one tongue as a judicious warning it would go hard with Lin Hing’s reputation.”

“Say on,” encouraged Shun-Ho, at the same time displaying the dregs within his cup, but whether to show Ah-Fang that they formed a lucky combination or to another end did not at first transpire. “Are we not both the sons of a common forerunner?”

“It was thus, since your polite curiosity will not be gainsaid,” continued Fang; “this being but a single instance among many. One night, at an angle of the Ways, he who is now relating the occurrence chanced upon an unknown stranger sleeping, with his body north and south and his face uncovered to the radiance of the great sky lantern.”

“Was he an Out-land man, one of the Short-haired of the Over- mountain Spaces?” inquired Shun-Ho with interest. “They say their demons cannot fly against the wind and are thereby easily outwitted; and it is credibly reported by those who have travelled there that these pale-eyed strangers propagate singly after the manner of fish, though others assert that they do not, but that their lesser ones have feathers on their breasts and lay eggs in earthen vessels.”

“He may have been a Middle-distance man,” admitted Fang, “but the outward signs were lacking. Be that as it was, here in Kochow he would be subject to the methods of our own especial spirits. Yet there he lay at the conflux of the paths, north and south, and without so much as an open paper umbrella to turn aside the malignant Forces.”

“That being so, how did you act?” demanded Shun-Ho.

“Without pausing to take breath I hastened back to the one who mars our prestige, whom presently I discovered at the Sign of Righteous Indulgence, rejoicing to set music. ‘Behold,’ I exclaimed when I had gained his ear, and thus and thus I reported, concluding, ‘Becoming afflicted in his mind as the result of this rash exposure, the undiscriminating stranger will likewise find when he awakes that he is bereft of the sense of continuous direction, and being thereby unable to leave Kochow he will ever after lurk about our Ways and open spaces, a source of alarm to all honest guardians of the night and an added tax upon the resources of the charitable henceforward.’”

“More might have been made of it, had you only taken breath,” demurred Shun-Ho. “They have been known to change into vampires.”

“I did but pause with the expectation that my zeal would be commended, and, haply, an auspicious sign set against my name in the book of daily omens and accusations.”

“To have done so would have been to proclaim his own dependence. Your mind, Ah-Fang, is like the progression of an elderly, footsore tortoise, and you should chew the strings of deer to correct this failing.”

“Merit would have been withheld had I recited an entire Ode suited to the occasion,” contended Fang darkly; “for, as it is truly written, ‘Bestow meat on an upstart and the bone will be cast back at you when he has picked it;’ and in furtherance of the saying, the one whose virtues we are here discussing, after he had thus ignored my service, added, ‘Begone, thou mutinous offspring of a mentally deficient he-mule, and resume thy neglected duties.’ ‘But the inauspicious stranger by the Way, O gracious under-chief,’ I pleaded. ‘The printed leaf of what we shall and shall not do contains no relevant instruction. And lying north and south, as I have said, in the full splendour of the great sky lantern–’ ‘Then take the enterprising wayfarer by the most convenient angle of his form and cast him east and west into the nearest shadow,’ he replied, and with that, in an entire reversal of hospitable usage, this hard- striving person was unworthily ejected.”

VI

“YOUR experience in this matter is not surprising, considering that I, though on a more exalted plane, have much to put up with at the hands of the envious and grasping,” remarked Shun-Ho, after he had again drawn Ah-Fang’s attention to the fortunate conjunction taken by the lees in his empty vessel. “There is Hao Sin, chief of the grill, who when I cross the yard to bear him a courteous greeting rarely fails to bar the door with a wooden shutter if he sees me at a distance; and the habit of licking his fingers vigorously in my direction whenever we meet outside falls short of true refinement. Wherefore, also, is it that Liang, the distiller of grain- extract, should always make a double count of the jars that he leaves at our gate unless an insidious barb has been thrust into my uprightness?”

“It may be,” suggested Ah-Fang, “that the integritous Liang fears lest one jar should have escaped him while he journeyed, and would have double assurance, so that your lustre may not suffer.”

“It may be,” replied Shun-Ho, with an extreme air of no- conviction, “but his device of impressing a special seal about each stopper casts a misgiving shadow.”

“Is there no method by which this sordid implication may be lifted?” asked Fang.

“Not when, as is the case, an ignobly tenacious wax is used and its substance firmly driven down into the gullet of each bottle,” confessed Shun-Ho with an overcast expression. “When one is eating meat, however, the bites of insects pass unnoticed and these disappointments represent very little actual loss that could be put into a balance. So long as an occasional voice in the granting of chance audiences falls my way and I can press in my services as intermediary for the disposal of the high ones’ abandoned raiment, there will be very little need for Shun-Ho to brick-beat his head to excite compassion.”

“Your state is an enviable one,” agreed Ah-Fang, “and that, like Shing Te’s sword, for a two-edged reason. Not only do you occupy a dignified and lucrative position here below, but when you Pass Beyond you will in all probability, through the influence of the one you serve, be accorded a very similar office there–if, indeed, your shadow is not actually given charge of the shadow of the Mandarin T’sin Wong’s shadow’s door.”

“It is as good as promised,” confided Shun-Ho with meaning; “so that I shall still be in a position to exercise a useful benevolence towards the shadows of those who have gladdened the face of my approval here below,” and he inadvertently overturned his empty cup, which Ah-Fang hastened to replenish.

VII

“IN spite of an assiduous loitering at the hasp of ill-closed shutters, we of our ever-resourceful band hear very little in a profitable direction of what goes on within Kochow of late,” remarked Ah-Fang. “Does the ancient male fowl of your allegiance maintain his digestive balance?”

“His High Excellence–”

“High Excellence–true. When one has acted as custodian to a Hoang-ho flower-junk during the Glad Moon one learns to call a sail a sail, but High Excellence is more scrupulously official.”

“Between the two who are here conversing together and our Ancestral Tablets, let it be freely admitted that the one to whom you have so fittingly alluded becomes increasingly vagarious in his humours as the time goes on,” volunteered Shun-Ho, relenting in his somewhat distant strain as he followed Ah-Fang’s outstretched intention. “Were a man provided with the eyes of a jealous husband, the ears of a discreet female slave, the legs of a prudent warrior and the hands of a needy official–sixteen members in all–they were still too few to serve him.”

“Yet in the past he has been spoken of as sincere and not too expectant.”

“Such a state of things undoubtedly prevailed, but of late he has more or less abandoned the invigorating pursuits becoming to a well-born noble of the Province–catching winged insects, flying kites, taking out the saffron bird upon a stick, and the like–and immersed himself in working charms and investigating omens. Until she with whom the matter rests produces definite reassurance that the Line of T’sin Wong is not to dwindle, there will be very few crackers let off within the four walls of the yamen.”

“It is a sombre outlook for one with a craving towards shark- fin and the priceless nests of remote sea-birds that he has yet no he-child to assure a continuance of supplies when he has Passed Above,” admitted Ah-Fang, who could himself rely on the service of a stalwart and ever-increasing band of offsprings. “It is not to be wondered at that he should consult the portents.”

“That is well enough,” murmured Shun-Ho, contending with an inclination to fold his arms and slumber, “but, as has been rightly decided, even the Yangtse-kiang must come to an end somewhere. Already seven-and-thirty soothsayers of one kind and another have recently cast the Sacred Sticks inside the yamen, and a tribe of eleven distant-speaking horoscopists is reported as approaching. Nowadays any leper who stands before the gate and can lay claim to a shred of wizardry is fulsomely welcome.”

“It is a matter of some comment among the Ways that he whose failings we are discussing has not sought out another chief one of his inner chamber, in that this bearer of the name has responded to his efforts so effetely. Haply she sways him by her excessive symmetry of outline?”

“Her appearance is nothing to display banners on the walls about,” replied Shun-Ho, assuming an apathetic manner, “but on such details His High Excellence and the one now finishing his wine are not wholly in agreement.”

“It is as well that we should seek our stations,” announced Ah-Fang, rising hastily, for the reference to Shun-Ho’s ever- empty cup did not tend to reassure him. “Already several distant thunder-bolts have descended on the city, and a paper umbrella is a poor defence against a red-hot missile.”

“Since we are both bankrupt of resources it would be idle to contend,” agreed Shun-Ho, rising also and again reclining at his ease several times in succession. “But you are under a mental distortion, ill-informed Ah-Fang, in this matter of distant thunder; and were it not that we are, so to speak, the fathers of a common offspring, the attempt might germinate in some offensiveness between us. ‘Distant thunder’ was the essence of your claim that we should withdraw our custom, yet–”

“Be that as it might,” interposed Ah-Fang mildly, “it now admittedly has something of the rhythm of a very powerful drum at closer quarters.”

“A drum!” exclaimed Shun-Ho, embracing Ah-Fang about the neck in his effort to maintain an alert position. “A drum beaten within three li of our magisterial palace! This implicates gross treachery, thou corrupt and hollow Fang, outvying any thunder.”

“Illustrious customers!” besought the keeper of the house, entering with a lavish display of versatile emotion; “make your way hence while the paths still lie open. Flags are being unfurled, fireworks discharged; the official guarders of the routes have withdrawn to safety; all open doors are being securely barred, and all barred ones thrown widely open; the great drum at the chief gate of the yamen has been taken down and sounded, and without the most shadowy grasp of what is taking place every quarter of the city is joining in the tumult.”

“It was the drum of State, and another hand has beat it!” exclaimed Shun-Ho, weeping profusely as Ah-Fang upheld his shoulder. “Some danger threatens, the order has gone forth, and Shun-Ho was not at his post to fulfil it. So drastic a line of action can only indicate one of two misfortunes: either the dynasty has fallen or His High Excellence has suffered extreme annoyance at the rendering of an unusually depressing omen.”

CHAPTER II

Unpropitious opening of the First of Much Gladness and the various ill-effects that Malign Influences had upon the charitable activities of a high official.

I

IS it not written in the wisdom of the Verses, “He who desires to ride with ease must be content to follow the road-maker,” thereby indicating in a somewhat oblique manner that a sore tribulation may be the outcome of a too rigid insistence on the claims of strict precedence? By a similar analogy the poverty-stricken device of listening, as it were, to the low- conditioned conversation of two such illiterate persons as Ah- Fang and Shun-Ho is designed to smooth out painlessly the harshness of the position affecting that exalted functionary the dignified Mandarin T’sin Wong, and make it possible for those who have not already cast aside this discreditable essay in high- minded annoyance to grasp the essentials of his plight.

Added to this, a well-grounded confidence prevails that by the expedient of leading up from so commonplace a situation to one in which persons of undoubted superiority appear, those who have so far continued to tolerate these wholly inadequate printed leaves may be imperceptibly lured on, in the hope of, haply, some further improvement.

II

THIS most illustrious official of the Badge of the Golden Pheasant, the Mandarin T’sin Wong, was then at the very pinnacle of his fame, and although it would not appear from the pages of the Annals that he actually achieved anything, either before or after, this is doubtless due to his misfortune in living in an era when men of exceptional ability were as the clustering berries on a prolific lychee tree, or else to the jealousy of rival statesmen who may have effaced the records.

To those who in a spirit of narrow-minded prejudice demand some further proof, it is enough to point to the investure of T’sin Wong about this time with that treasured emblem of sympathetic authority, the specially created Order of the Everopen Ear. This unique distinction, which must have been conferred upon the enraptured Mandarin by his appreciative Sovereign for service of a very humanitarian nature, permits the happy recipient to approach the Dragon Throne after merely striking the floor with the side of the head three times, instead of with the more ceremonial brow of less favoured courtiers.... In so passionate a spirit of loyalty did T’sin Wong perform his homage on the marble pavement of the throne room at the occasion of the bestowal as to induce the claim on his behalf that he was never entirely the same official afterwards. Some, however, among them standing the revered mother of the chief one of his couch, declared that no appreciable change was discernible; while others maintained that the recipients of hereditary degrees invariably tended to a process of deterioration as the generations passed, and that T’sin Wong in his devotion only enshrined within himself the full effects of the time-honoured system.

III

WHEN the first rays of the great sky-fire awoke T’sin Wong on the morning of that day ever to be marked with a white and ineradicable sign of mourning, the First of Much Gladness, it was with a cheerful sense of something pleasurable impending that he closed his eyes again. Not pointless is the saying, “To those whom they would crush the Deities send a lucky dream.”

Thus positioned, it was but logical that the Mandarin should first associate his unformed anticipations with the thought of food. Doubtless, proceeded the methodical function of his half- awakened senses, he was expecting a consignment of the arriving season’s rice-worms, or an especially choice jar of the gills of some of the rarer sea creatures. Or, perchance, intelligence had come that the vanguard of the returning salt-snails had been sighted–but at this point an alerter faculty recalled him, and with an admitted change of angle, though scarcely any diminution of his gladness, T’sin Wong remembered that the occasion was not one directly connected with the board at all, though a suitable feast would not be lacking. It was, be it not forgotten, the First of the Moon of Much Gladness, and on such a day, now a cycle of years ago, the venerated grandmother of the cherished ruler of his inner chamber had come into being. To mark the palmy occasion T’sin Wong would, as usual, receive gifts appropriate to his station from the overjoyed dwellers about Kochow, and accept their homage-laden congratulations. No doubt as to the suitability of the offerings marred his vision, for, taught by the experience of former years, T’sin Wong had caused it to be made known through trusty sources that his accommodation for coffins, shrouds and silk-bound copies of “The Virtuous Official’s Sleeve Companion” had passed its appointed limit, and that for this occasion nothing but actual silver or paper obligations of the gold-lined order would rejoice his imagination.

IV

WHEN the one whose privilege it was to take down the inspired Mandarin’s spoken words–and also to perform certain other less literary offices about his sublime person–approached the couch at the stroke of a summoning gong, T’sin Wong indicated by a gracious movement of the hand that he desired to remain in a recumbent attitude for a further period of intellectual meditation.

“At the same time,” he continued indulgently, “there is no reason why you should bask in a state of unproductive lethargy, Chin-tung. Take your tablets, therefore, and set down, in a neat and grammatical sequence, our definite instructions for the day.”

“To hear your melodious voice is to obey with delighted alacrity, High Excellence,” replied the other, moistening his brush. “Speak on.”

“This being the First of the Moon of Much Gladness–the day for ever distinguished as that on which the last-but-one of our inferior half began her admirable existence–the occasion will be observed with the usual appropriate rites. At a convenient moment before the middle rice the one who is outlining his intentions will take up a commanding position in the ancestral hall and reluctantly accept the spontaneous tributes of admiration forced upon him by a grateful people; you, Chin-tung, meanwhile lurking in the convenient background and inscribing on your sleeve the names of those who seek to absent themselves from the informal gathering, and also details affecting any of the offerings which do not come up to our tabulated list of reasonable expectations. To bridge, as one might say, any regrettable gaps in the stress of the arrivals the Kochow Porcelain Pagoda Table-gong Strikers will be in attendance, and–”

“High Excellence,” Chin-tung ventured to interpose, “an ill- conditioned chance–”

“Among the desirable attributes of even a third-rate taker- down of the spoken word it has been aptly said that large ears and a well-retired mouth compensate for many obvious failings,” continued the enlightened Mandarin, raising his accomplished voice somewhat, but without suffering any other variation in his gratifying eloquence. “Learn henceforward, O inopportune-lipped Chin, to emulate the facial merits of the docile elephant, or your yearly adequacy of taels may dwindle. In the period of after-rice the Kochow Throng of He-child Track-followers, accompanied by the Dragonet Band, and, if those of the inner chambers of the town permit it, the Group of She-child Out- pointers will be massed about the yamen sward, and when each has received a refreshing fruit and a moderate supply of plain but nutritious fare they will go through their gratifying evolutions. The Drum and Spiral-shell Noise-makers of the First Horde will enliven–”

“Extreme Benevolence!” pleaded the harassed inscriber of his word, “at the risk of bringing down the celestial lightning of your chastening frown the unpropitious sentence must be spoken, for, as the philosopher Nyi Hi remarked when condemned to death by boiling, ‘Were there no shadows we should cease to appreciate the sun.’”

“If the inspired sage was the person who observed, ‘By tenacity it is possible to arrest the progress of an earthquake, but the tongue of the witless outruns a Mongolian camel,’ proceed, Chin-tung, for his words are golden, and that which your rebellious obstinacy forfeits is but silver.”

“Nevertheless,” persisted Chin-tung, taking a firmer hold upon his resolution, “it is unendurable that your symmetrically arranged periods should be wasted upon so mentally threadbare a being as myself. Know, O Most Exalted, that the bright and undoubtedly remunerative vision which you so proficiently outline has already faded.”

“It is well said that he who talks too much when there is no occasion invariably says too little in moments of real need,” declared T’sin Wong with a refined bitterness of accent. “Endeavour to get the better of this weakness, Chin-tung, by studying the moves of chess, and in the meantime declare your bankrupt mind more fully.”

“Your sympathetic indulgence only adds to my lowborn discomfort, but I will trim the repugnant fact to its acutest angle,” replied Chin-tung submissively. “Owing to the misdirected energy of an inauspicious planet it has been found necessary to modify the Calendar, and the First of Much Gladness will this year fall upon the Second, in order to restore the harmonious balance of the Upper Spaces.”

“Is this the full extent of the beneficial achievement of the ill–the illustrious officials who control the Records?” asked T’sin Wong in a delicately attuned voice of two-edged import, “or does it preface some further attraction which you, Chin-tung, are tactfully endeavouring, as it were, to lead down to?”

“Omniscience, it would be as easy to wean a he-goat from pollution as to withhold your exploring mind from that which may affect a profit,” was the generous admission. “According to the ‘What is in progress’ column of to-day’s Official Printed Leaf, an exceptionally virtuous Emperor of the reigning Line was invited to ascend on the Second of Much Gladness five hundred and fifty-five years ago, and in consequence the day will be observed with ceremonial mourning. In particular, a functionary of any button detected accepting gifts or being glad to music will be degraded on a special scale, as set forth with typical examples.”

As he spoke, Chin-tung would have produced the sheet referred to in witness of his message, but the considerate T’sin Wong did not seem to require it. He closed both eyes and an occasional low word passed his proficient lips–doubtless invoking prosperity upon the spirit of the justice-loving monarch in question, but although Chin-tung caught a fervent reference to the dynasty at large he did not actually overhear the blessing. After an adequate pause the broad-willed official’s features resumed their usual tolerant expression.

“It is an undeniable fact,” he remarked dispassionately, “that he who is slovenly with his rice-bowl will also contrive to be a scatterer of distressing tidings, and you, Chin-tung, are a notorious example of the adage. Learn, now, how unpleasant to yourself this indiscretion makes you. There no longer being an inducement to get up, the one who is thus expressing his disappointment in you will compose himself again to inward contemplation, and you will thereby be denied the extreme felicity of assisting him into his going-about garments. Furthermore, it would seem to be a fitting opportunity to disclose now that your appearance is the reverse of agreeable, Chin-tung, and in a general sense you have failed to win approval.”

“Your well-chosen phrases of compassion are a continual source of nourishment to my admittedly second-rate understanding,” replied Chin-tung profusely. “Lo, Graciousness, I will now withdraw to my own unsightly quarters and endeavour to adjust your in-taels to equalize your out-taels for the past financial season.”

V

WHEN the liberal-minded T’sin Wong emerged from an introspective reverie some time later he assumed that the adverse influences which must undoubtedly have been responsible for so disastrous a start might be relied upon to have passed on elsewhere. He accordingly decided to arise and robe, but with prudent foresight he refrained from striking the gong lest some lingering hostile Power might perchance still be within hearing.

In spite of a judicial calling which occasionally rendered it inevitable that he should condemn those who did not cherish virtue to various unpleasant forms of ending, the Mandarin T’sin Wong was of a mild and benevolent disposition. Even when consigning those who had no possible claim on his indulgence to the more rigorous sorts of torture he rarely failed to thread a pearl-like string of gravity-removing aphorisms among the commonplace formalities of the sentence, so that the most dissolute should have something mirth-compelling to dwell on when the mind would be peculiarly in need of distraction; nor did he grudge the time–that might otherwise have been spent in sleep–given to devising these spontaneous flashes. For this reason the name of T’sin Wong came to be esteemed as space-worthy among those who sent forth the printed sheets, and his court became the resort of the effete and lethargic beyond any other in the Province.

It was the custom of this immaculate official when the morning seemed to be one of unusual geniality to pass a slightly damped cloth across his intellectual features on rising, even when, by his own exacting standard, the conditions did not actually require it. To those who, on learning of the venture, inquired if so violent a hazard did not affect the essential balance of the harmonizing functions, the intrepid magistrate would reply that so far from this being the case, a feeling of stalwart self- confidence was engendered. Under this stimulating influence T’sin Wong now began to attire, and as he did so he chanted a vainglorious song concerning a high official of a bygone age who had possessed a concubine so engaging that a prince of the neighbouring power of Wei had sought a pretext for making war in order to secure her. He would have continued in a like defiant strain through the second verse had he not remembered that the persistent intonation of his voice might give annoyance to the silkworms.

These proficient creatures, on whose habits and orderly behaviour the Mandarin largely relied for guidance in many of the more general contingencies of life, occupied a space set apart at an angle of the chamber, and as he assumed his loin-cloth T’sin Wong bent his steps in that direction, with no other thought than to gratify his eyes by the sight of their meritorious labour.

Alas, who has not experience of the profoundness of the maxim, “It is better to pick up a copper cash than to dream of drawing a winning number?” Instead of the wonted activity of a zealous band, a scene of apathy and disorder was his welcome. Many of the less resolute-minded of the insects had already Passed Beyond, and even the most enduring had clearly received The Message. At this fresh evidence of the malignity of the Forces an unworthy despair would have possessed T’sin Wong, until he realized that much of the unsettled equipoise of his constituents could be restored in the process of unburdening his mind to one whose conduct he might censure. This feasibly brings in the contumacious Li, whose special office it was to be a remover of discarded fragments.

VI

OWING to the persistence of his claim when a reprimand was foreshadowed, Won Li was commonly referred to as the “Other Hand” among his fellows in the mean parts of the palace. On this occasion so menace-laden was the Unapproachable’s bearing when, in answer to a vigorous summons, Li was thrust inwards to the Presence, that the person in question did not even wait for his offence to be outlined before he proclaimed a denial.

“Some other hand, High Excellence, is accountable for this evil. The lowliest of your slaves was at the time busied elsewhere in your service.”

“Thus and thus,” assented T’sin Wong, withholding his just reproach in order to learn what further crime the egregrious Li had committed. “How, then, may this mischance be the readiest amended?”

“That is no great matter, Munificence,” replied the supine one, walking into the snare unaided. “The jade must be of a very inferior sort to come apart at this person’s bare touch, or, as he now recalls the fact, merely when it was looked at. A convenient phial of ‘Ah-Grip-Ho’ will remedy the blemish, or, for the matter of that, why should not the jar be left as it now is, with the fractured side delicately propped up against the carved image of the Sincere One?”

“This also, O thou most transparent Li!” exclaimed the conscientious law-giver, thus for the first time discovering the abuse to which a priceless vase of the choicest tone had been subjected. “Is there no end to the misdoings of this more than usually left-handed demolisher of order? Behold the hard-striving creatures whose industrious thrift has doubtless incurred your rancour, and prepare your stubborn back to wear out an ample but totally inadequate supply of bamboo rods in the light of a general warning.”

“Yet there is no occasion for dismay, Benevolence,” protested Li, “this being but in the process of their nature. All such creatures lose their skins from time to time and then fall into a stupor. This, doubtless, is what has happened–”

“It is what assuredly will happen without delay to one who need not be more exactly specified,” interposed T’sin Wong with sombre meaning. “By a well-established axiom of justice, he who would be guilty of the vice of attempting to instruct a lesser forbear of his Line in the art of extracting the fruit of a banana is automatically held to be capable of any crime up to and including playing games of chance on tombstones, and you, Won Li, by assuming to explain the usage of the industrious worm to one who is the father and the father’s father of a city, have clearly brought yourself within the network of the statute.”

“Nevertheless, Omnipotence, it is well said–”

“It is still better left unsaid,” declared the impartial magistrate concisely, “or on to your original offence may be grafted that of interrupting a high official in the accomplishment of his function. In a strictly legal sense, whatever you may say or omit saying is evidence of a criminal intention that may be used against you, but as between an ever- indulgent chief and a wayward and ill-designing minion, impartiality may be, so to speak, diluted with forbearance–after you have made a full confession of the lapse and disclosed the exact manner of your crafty vengeance.”

“Inasmuch, Tolerance, as this person has not even–”

“Without actually going to the unpleasant extremity of compressing the diligent-hearted toilers between a thumb and finger,” continued the obliging administrator speculatively, “there are several Malign Influences to which this class of insect is notably subject. Thus you may have looked significantly in their direction immediately after watching a funeral procession, thereby throwing them into a wasting sickness.”

“Alas, Great Highness, such entertainments do not come within the scope of one whose activities are bounded by the four walls of–”

“Or,” suggested the resourceful authority tactfully, “by breathing heavily outside their cage after partaking generously of fish you have doubtless diffused a fatal apathy about their system.”

“If,” declared the clay-souled Li, with more than usual ardour, “if it were possible under the usurious thumb of the parsimonious Hao Sin to obtain even a bare sufficiency of the simplest rice–fish being in the nature of a distant vision–”

“Then you have doubtless brought in a live lizard and allowed the unsuspecting creatures to observe it, or told them something unsettling to their simple mode of life, or in one way or another effected your vindictive purpose,” definitely announced T’sin Wong, his humane forbearance becoming somewhat corroded under Won Li’s unreasonable persistence. “The silk-worms being manifestly dead, a logical excuse must inevitably be found to account for the arisement. Insects so devoted to their frugal toil do not Pass Hence for nothing. It would be as irrational for this person himself to sacrifice his own striking and ornamental pig-tail as for these orderly and custom-loving creatures to self-end themselves merely–”

“Pre-eminence!” exclaimed Won Li, who had dared for a moment to lift his mediocre eyes to follow the parallelism of T’sin Wong’s apt allusion, “the unguarded word has been spoken. We are undoubtedly in the thick of very convincing Forces: your highly distinguished head has indeed suffered this unmentionable effacement!”

How shall the degrading fact be adequately expressed with a brush of only ordinary size and in ink having no particular brilliance? The Mandarin T’sin Wong raised his self-reliant hand to his nobly proportioned neck, but at what it failed there to encounter his deficient knees betrayed him. His incomparable pig- tail, essentially the badge and symbol of his dignity and sway, had completely vanished.

CHAPTER III

The insatiable devotion of Chin-tung and his timely proclamation to the community of Seers, together with a threadbare account of the difficulty this occasioned and an opportune example of the penetration displayed by the Mandarin T’sin Wong.

I

HOW many among the thousands who daily give point to some lack of foresight on their neighbour’s part by the helpful reminder, “It is useless to bar the shutter when the pig has flown,” spare a charitable thought for the unfortunate Mandarin T’sin Wong, stricken in the very seat and citadel of his dignified authority almost within sight of the gravity-unstable and derisive element of legendary Kochow in the ancient days of Ming Wang, who rearranged the Statutes? Rather, by the corrupting passage of time, the natural words themselves have come to obtain a deeper implication, whereby the illiterate and uncouth do not scruple to maintain that in those patriarchal ages a race of animals notoriously earth-bound and devoid of aspiration possessed the semi-divine attributes of dragons, griffins and other beings of a similar creation.

II

IT cannot be denied that in the first anguish of his humiliating discovery the usually self-possessed T’sin Wong completely lost his feet and issued a variety of conflicting orders with no very clear perception of what would logically result, his one apparent desire being to keep his entire retinue and household in a state of perpetual flux and to tax any whom he encountered carrying out his instructions, with treason, insubordination, embezzlement, venality, sluggishness, precipitancy, lack of poise, over-confidence, sycophancy, arrogance, or failure of initiative to a censurable degree.

The city gates were closed and thrown open again more times than an ordinary person could remember; the Ways and Spaces cleared of loiterers, and immediately afterwards filled to congestion on the injunction that all the trustworthy should freely display themselves or be deemed guilty of plotting behind barred doors. The entire stock of fireworks and coloured lights that the stalls of the Make-glad Mart contained was promiscuously discharged as an indication that those in authority were by no means disheartened, and, conjointly, demonstrations of every kind were prohibited by horn-blowers, crying from lofty towers. Both the Iron Caps and the Tiger Braves were speedily called out as a provision of emergency and as speedily disbanded as a precautionary measure. All prisoners were set at liberty so that the various keepers of the cage might be free to lend their weight wherever aid was needed, but a like number of doubtless equally guilty passers-by was quickly gathered in lest it should seem to the dissolute that iniquity prevailed. To merchants of every sort, and to vendors by the Routes, an order was passed on that none should seek in the general stress to increase the profit of his commerce; and the people were everywhere assured that all had been foreseen and was being capably dealt with, so that nothing was required on their part but obscurity and repose.

Having in this comprehensive manner provided for everything, whichever way it went, and convinced the populace that something of an exceptionally disastrous nature had taken place and was being withheld, the resourceful-minded dispenser of justice inadvertently caught sight of himself from a backward angle in a mirror of three facets, and suffering an overwhelming emotion of despair at this reminder of his loss, he again retired to his inner chamber to see if perchance guidance would be revealed to him through the medium of a vision. Before closing his eyes, in order to concentrate inwardly with suitable detachment, he again summoned Chin-tung from the lower parts of the palace, and specifically commanded the unassuming inscriber of his word that he should now earn his overdue sufficiency of taels by probing the outrage to its source at once and recovering the severed queue before it had suffered any further desecration at the hands of the lawless and unofficial.

“Does the grasshopper spin webs wherein to catch its prey, or the earthworm lay up for herself a store of honey?” reasonably contended Chin-tung as he weighed his own shortcomings in an exacting balance. “Assuredly this concerns the collective prescience of the company of Sages, to whom I will send forth an authoritative summons... and may the President of the Lower Regions fructify their labour.”

III

SELDOM even in the variegated history of epoch- gemmed Kochow had a more impressive ceremony been witnessed than the gathering together of the entire company of omen-readers and revealers of the obscure, when, in response to the proclamation that Chin-tung had taken it upon himself to farcast in T’sin Wong’s name, they began to converge by guilds and fraternities, or as solitary wayfarers and straggling tribes upon the yamen gate. Shun-Ho alone, upon whom it devolved to unloose the bar of the outer door until his wrist grew flaccid, voiced any discord.

“Has sandal-leather become a thing of no account in Kochow that one must toil for nothing more negotiable than a blessing?” was his lament, as he swung an empty sleeve fruitlessly before a band of hereditary ape-worshippers whose leader had made him a flattering obeisance as they passed in, but no material contribution. “It were as well to be shoot-bolt to a community of locusts as to expect a piece of broken copper from this sort–may their Deities pelt them with the sacred ordure!”