or official, and there being a similar balance between crowbar
and books."

"Your words are like a page written in vermilion ink," exclaimed
Hoa-mi, with a sideway-expressed admiration.

"Alas!" he declared, with conscious humility, "my style is meagre and
almost wholly threadbare. To remedy this, each day I strive to
perfect myself in the correct formation of five new written signs.
When equipped with a knowledge of every one there is I shall be
competent to write so striking and original an essay on any subject
that it will no longer be possible to exclude my name from the list of
official appointments."

"It will be a day of well-achieved triumph for the spirits of your
expectant ancestors," said Hoa-mi sympathetically.

"It will also have a beneficial effect on my own material prospects,"
replied Lao Ting, with a commendable desire to awaken images of a more
specific nature in the maiden's imagination. "Where hitherto it has
been difficult to support one, there will then be a lavish profusion
for two. The moment the announcement is made, my impatient feet will
carry me to this spot. Can it be hoped--?"

"It has long been this one's favourite resort also," confessed Hoa-mi,
with every appearance of having adequately grasped Lao Ting's desired
inference, "Yet to what number do the written signs in question
stretch?"

"So highly favoured is our unapproachable language that the number can
only be faintly conjectured. Some claim fivescore thousand different
written symbols; the least exacting agree to fourscore thousand."

"You are all-knowing," responded the maiden absently. With her face in
an opposing direction her lips moved rapidly, as though she might be
in the act of addressing some petition to a Power. Yet it is to be
doubted if this accurately represents the nature of her inner
thoughts, for when she again turned towards Lao Ting the engaging
frankness of her expression had imperceptibly deviated, as she
continued:

"In about nine and forty years, then, O impetuous one, our converging
footsteps will doubtless again encounter upon this spot. In the
meanwhile, however, this person's awaiting father is certainly
preparing something against her tardy return which the sign for a
crowbar would fittingly represent."

Then urging the water-buffalo to increased exertion she fled, leaving
Lao Ting a prey to emotions of a very distinguished intensity.

In spite of the admittedly rough-edged nature of Hoa-mi's