enth day of this one's determination to sustain
himself by the exercise of his literary style, he was journeying about
sunset towards one of these spots, subduing the grosser instincts of
mankind by reviewing the wisdom of the sublime Lao Ch'un, who decided
that heat and cold, pain and fatigue, and mental distress, have no real
existence, and are therefore amenable to logical disproof, while the
cravings of hunger and thirst are merely the superfluous attributes of
a former and lower state of existence, when a passer-by, who for some
distance had been alternately advancing before and remaining behind,
matched his footsteps into mine.

"Whichee way walk-go, John, eh?" said this unfortunate being, who
appeared to be suffering from a laborious deformity of speech. "Allee
samee load me. Chin-chin."

Filled with compassion for one who evidently found himself alone in a
strange land, in the absence of his more highly-accomplished companion,
unable to indicate his wants and requirements to those about him, I
regretfully admitted that I had not chanced to encounter that John
whose wandering footsteps he sought; and to indicate, by not leaving him
abruptly, that I maintained a sympathetic concern over his welfare, I
pointed out to him the exceptional brilliance of the approaching night,
adding that I myself was then directing a course towards a certain
spacious Heath, a few li distant in the north.

"Sing-dance tomollow, then?" he said, with a condensed air of general
disappointment. "Chop-chop in a pay look-see show on Ham--Hamstl--oh
damme! on 'Ampstead 'Eath? Booked up, eh, John?"

Gradually convinced that it was becoming necessary to readjust the
significance of the incident, I replied that I had no intention of
partaking of chops or food of any variety in an erected tent, but merely
of passing the night in an intellectual seclusion.

"Oh," said the one who was walking by my side, regarding my garments
with engaging attention, and at the same time appearing to regain an
unruffled speech as though the other had been an assumed device, "I
understand--the Blue Sky Hotel. Well, I've stayed there once or twice
myself. A bit down on your uppers, eh?"

"Assuredly this person may perchance lay his upper parts down for a
short space of time," I admitted, when I had traced out the symbolism of
the words. "As it is humanely written in The Books, 'Sleep and suicide
are the free refuges equally of the innocent and the guilty.'"