incurred the displeasure of the sublime Emperor, has
been decapitated in consequence.

5. An ordinary person of no striking or distinguished appearance. One
who can be safely introduced in all places and circumstances without
great fear of detection.

After many months spent in constant practice and in taking measurements,
this unenviable person attained a very high degree of proficiency, and
could draw any of the five characters without hesitation. With renewed
hope, therefore, he again approached those who sit in easy-chairs, and
concealing his identity (for they are stiff at bending, and when once
a picture-maker is classed as "of no good" he remains so to the end, in
spite of change), he succeeded in getting entrusted with a story by
the elegant and refined Kyen Tal. This writer, as he remembered with
distrust, confines his distinguished efforts entirely to the doings of
sailors and of those connected with the sea, and this tale, indeed, he
found upon reading to be the narrative of how a Hang-Chow junk and its
crew, consisting mostly of aged persons, were beguiled out of their
course by an exceedingly ill-disposed dragon, and wrecked upon an island
of naked barbarians. It was, therefore, with a somewhat heavy stomach
that this person set himself the task of arranging his five characters
as so to illustrate the words of the story.

The sayings of the ancient philosopher Tai Loo are indeed very subtle,
and the truth of his remark, "After being disturbed in one's dignity by
a mandarin's foot it is no unusual occurrence to fall flat on the
face in crossing a muddy street," was now apparent. Great as was the
disadvantage owing to the nature of the five characters, this became as
nothing when it presently appeared that the avaricious and clay-souled
Tieng Lin, taking advantage of the blindness of this person's
enthusiasm, had taught him the figures so that they all gazed in the
same direction. In consequence of this it would have been impossible
that two should be placed as in the act of conversing together had not
the noble Kyen Tal been inspired to write that "his companions turned
from him in horror." This incident the ingenious person who is recording
these facts made the subject of three separate drawings, and having
in one or two other places effected skilful changes in the writing, so
similar in style to the strokes of the illustrious Kyen Tal as to
be undetectable, he found little difficulty in making use of all