inventor
and sole user of the justly far-famed G. R. Ko-Ho hair restorer--sent in
five guinea bottles to any address on receipt of four penny stamps--as
he appeared in his celebrated impersonation of the human-faced Swan at
Doll and Edgar's. Come on, oh, Ho!"

"Assuredly," I replied, striving to follow him, "yet with the wary
greeting, 'Slowly, slowly; walk slowly,' engraved upon my mind, for the
barrier of these convoluted stairs--" but at this word a band of maidens
passed out hastily, and in the tumult I reached the dais and began
Weng Chi's immortal verses, entitled "The Meandering Flight," which had
occupied me three complete days and nights in the detail of rendering
the allusions into well-balanced similitudes and at the same time
preserving the skilful evasion of all conventional rules which raises
the original to so sublime a height.

The voice of one singing at the dawn;
The seven harmonious colours in the sky;
The meeting by the fountain;
The exchange of gifts, and the sound of the processional drum;
The emotion of satisfaction in each created being;
This is the all-prominent indication of the Spring.

The general disinclination to engage in laborious tasks;
The general readiness to consume voluminous potions on any
pretext.
The deserted appearance of the city and the absence of the
come-in motion at every door;
The sportiveness of maidens, and even those of maturer age,
ethereally clad, upon the shore.
The avowed willingness of merchants to dispose of their wares
for half the original sum.
This undoubtedly is the Summer.

The yellow tea leaf circling as it falls;
The futile wheeling of the storm-tossed swan;
The note of the marble lute at evening by the pool;
The immobile cypress seen against the sun.
The unnecessarily difficult examination paper.
All these things are suggestive of the Autumn.

The growing attraction of a well-lined couch.
The obsequious demeanour of message-bearers, charioteers, and
the club-armed keepers of peace.
The explosion of innumerable fire-crackers round the convivial
shines,
The gathering together of relations who at all other times
shun each other markedly.
The obtrusive recollection of a great many things contrary to
a spoken vow, and the inflexible purpose to be more
resolute in future.
These in turn invariably attend each Winter.

It certainly had not presented itself to me before that the words
"invariably attend" are ill-cho