stress. These for the greater part recommend tranquillity
of mind, a complete abnegation of the human passions and the
like behaviour. The person who is here endeavouring to bring this
badly-constructed account of his dishonourable career to a close
pondered these for some moments after twice glancing through the matter
in the printed leaves, and then, finding the faculties of speech and
movement restored to him, procured a two-edged knife of distinguished
brilliance and went forth to call upon the one who sits in an
easy-chair.

"Behold," said the lesser one, insidiously stepping in between this
person an the inner door, "my intellectual and all-knowing chief is not
here to-day. May his entirely insufficient substitute offer words of
congratulation to the inspired Kin Yen on his effective and striking
pictures in this week's issue?"

"His altogether insufficient substitute," answered this person, with
difficulty mastering his great rage, "may and shall offer words of
explanation to the inspired Kin Yen, setting forth the reason of his
pictures being used, not with the high-minded story of the elegant
Tong-king for which they were executed, but accompanying exceedingly
base, foolish, and ungrammatical words written by Klan-hi, the Peking
remover of gravity--words which will evermore brand the dew-like Tien
as a person of light speech and no refinement"; and in his agony this
person struck the lacquered table several times with his elegant knife.

"O Kin Yen," exclaimed the lesser one, "this matter rests not here. It
is a thing beyond the sphere of the individual who is addressing you.
All he can tell is that the graceful Tong-king withdrew his exceedingly
tedious story for some reason at the final moment, and as your eminent
drawings had been paid for, my chief of the inner office decided to use
them with this story of Klan-hi. But surely it cannot be that there is
aught in the story to displease your illustrious personality?"

"Judge for yourself," this person said, "first understanding that the
two immaculate characters figuring as the personages of the narrative
are exact copies of this dishonoured person himself and of the willowy
Tien, daughter of the vastly rich Pe-li-Chen, whom he was hopeful of
marrying."

Selecting one of the least offensive of the passages in the work, this
unhappy person read the following immature and inelegant words:

"This well-satisfied writer of printed leaves had a highly-distingu