nes, after Quang-Tsun had interpreted this
polite salutation to his understanding, "since you mention it, that's
just the trouble; but I'm going on pretty well, thanks. I've tried most
of the advertised things, and now my doctor has put me practically on a
bread-and-water course--clear soup, boiled fish, plain joint, no sweets,
a crumb of cheese, and a bare three glasses of Hermitage."

During this amiable remark (of which, as it is somewhat of a technical
nature, I was unable to grasp the contained significance until the
agreeable Quang-Tsun had subsequently repeated it several times for my
retention), I maintained a consistent expression of harmonious agreement
and gratified esteem (suitable, I find, for all like occasions), and
then, judging from the sympathetic animation of Jones Bob-Jones's
countenance, that it had not improbably been connected with food,
I discreetly introduced the subject of sea-snails, preserved in the
essence of crushed peaches, by courteously inquiring whether he had ever
partaken of such a delicacy.

"No," replied the liberal-minded person, when--encouraged by the
protruding eagerness of his eyes at the mention of the viand--I had
further spoken of the refined flavour of the dish, and explained the
manner of its preparation. "I can't say that I have, but it sounds
uncommonly good--something like turtle, I should imagine. I'll see if
they can get it for me at Pimm's."

This filial tribute goes by a trusty hand, in the person of one Ki Nihy,
who is shortly committing himself to the protection of his ancestors
and the voracity of the unbounded Bitter Waters; and with brightness
and gold it will doubtless reach you in the course of twelve or eighteen
moons. The superstitious here, this person may describe, when they wish
to send messages from one to another, inscribe upon the outer cover a
written representation of the one whose habitation they require, and
after affixing a small paper talisman, drop it into a hole in the
nearest wall, in the hope that it may be ultimately conveyed to the
appointed spot, either by the services of the charitably-disposed
passer-by, or by the intervention of the beneficent deities.

With a multiplicity of greetings and many abject expressions of a
conscious inferiority, and attested by an unvarying thumb-mark.

KONG HO. (Effete branch of a pure and magnanimous trunk.)

To Kong Ah-Paik, reclining beneath the sign of the Lead Tortoise, in a
northerly directio