ands, when they see one of us!

"_Caustic._--Duchesses keep gaming-tables!

"_Dashall._--To be sure! How the devil should they live?"

Such, O learned Cho-Ling-Kyang! is the real life of those extraordinary
beings who are so steady and plodding to outward appearance. Little would
you suspect that, when one of the merchants of the factory got home, he
would aid duchesses in the setting up of Faro tables, and mix with all the
brilliant and dissolute society of a great city. To us, such thoughts
would seem unnatural, and scarcely would the president of the Hong
consider himself qualified to hold a chopstick in the presence of a yellow
button. And I fear greatly; that in the extremity of your unbelief you
say, Tush, tush--Ping-Kee is deceiving us by inventing foolish deceits! An
English merchant would not make open profession of his bankruptcy; an
English lady of rank would not exult in the number of people she had
ruined by false play at cards; an English gentleman would not concert
plans with his sister for the seduction of a lord's daughter; an English
sheriff would not throw off his grocer's apron to go and receive the
judges, while an English barrister put it on, and sold figs to the
beautiful daughter of a British captain. But consider, O Cho-Ling-Kyang!
that I am a man of veracity from my youth, and that if I make so bold as
to invent, or even to misquote, there may be many beside you who can
convict me at once. And if you persist in your doubts, and say, verily the
writers of those plays give no true account of their countrymen, but write
false things which have no existence in reality, what shall we think of
the countless numbers who go to see those representations, and take no
steps to punish the authors for libels and defamations--but, contrariwise,
applaud and clap their hands, and say "good, good"--would they do this if
the picture had no resemblance? But they hold up the stage as a school of
morals, and a copy of things that are. And another argument, O
Cho-Ling-Kyang! that these dramas are drawn from experience and
observation is, that they do not contradict each other, as they would
assuredly do if they proceeded from any source but reality. No, no--great
sir--believe me, that the scenes I have quoted are excellent descriptions
of the characters introduced, and that their originals are to be met with
every day. Again, perhaps you will say--not so; O Ping-Kee, the writers of
those plays are stupid