also is the custom of drinking by rule, under the guidance
of a toast-master, with fines of deep draughts of wine to be swallowed
by those who fail in capping verses, answering conundrums, recognising
quotations; to which may be added the custom of introducing
singing-girls toward the close of the entertainment.

At Athens, too, it was customary to begin a drinking-bout with small
cups, and resort to larger ones later on, a process which must be
familiar to all readers of Chinese novels, wherein, toward the close of
the revel, the half-drunken hero invariably calls for more capacious
goblets. Neither does the ordinary Chinaman approve of a short allowance
of wine at his banquets, as witness the following story, translated from
a Chinese book of anecdotes.

A stingy man, who had invited some guests to dinner, told his servant
not to fill up their wine-cups to the brim, as is usual. During the
meal, one of the guests said to his host, "These cups of yours are too
deep; you should have them cut down." "Why so?" inquired the host.
"Well," replied the guest, "you don't seem to use the top part for
anything."

There is another story of a man who went to dine at a house where the
wine-cups were very small, and who, on taking his seat at table,
suddenly burst out into groans and lamentations. "What is the matter
with you?" cried the host, in alarm. "Ah," replied his guest, "my
feelings overcame me. My poor father, when dining with a friend who had
cups like yours, lost his life, by accidentally swallowing one."

The water-clock, or _clepsydra_, has been known to the Chinese for
centuries. Where did it come from? Is it a mere coincidence that the
ancient Greeks used water-clocks?

Is it a coincidence that the Greeks used an abacus, or counting-board,
on which the beads slid up and down in vertical grooves, while on the
Chinese counting-board the only difference is that the beads slide up
and down on vertical rods?

Is it a mere coincidence that the olive should be associated in China,
as in Greece, with propitiation? To this day, a Chinaman who wishes to
make up a quarrel will send a piece of red paper containing an olive, in
token of friendly feeling; and the acceptance of this means that the
quarrel is at an end.

The olive was supposed by the Greeks to have been brought by Hercules
from the land of the Hyperboreans; the Chinese say it was introduced
into China in the second century B.C.

The extraordinary similarit