less, it is well said, "The Great
Wall is unsurmountable, but there are many gaps through," and that
same evening I was able to carry the first part of my well-intentioned
surprise into effect.

The matter now involves one named Herbert, who having exchanged gifts
of betrothal with a maiden staying at the house, was in the habit of
presenting himself openly, when he was permitted to see her, after the
manner of these barbarians. (Yet even of them the more discriminating
acknowledge that our customs are immeasurably superior; for when I
explained to the aged father of the Maidens Blank that among us the
marriage rites are irrevocably performed before the bride is seen
unveiled by man, he sighed heavily and exclaimed that the parents of
this country had much to learn.)

The genial-minded Herbert had already acquired for himself the
reputation of being one who ceaselessly removes the gravity of others,
both by word and action, and from the first he selected this obscure
person for his charitable purpose to a most flattering extent. Not only
did he--on the pretext that his memory was rebellious--invariably greet
me as "Mr. Hong Kong," but on more than one occasion he insisted, with
mirth-provoking reference to certain details of my unbecoming garments,
that I must surely have become confused and sent a Mrs. Hong Kong
instead of myself, and frequently he undermined the gravity of all most
successfully by pulling me backwards suddenly by the pigtail, with the
plea that he imagined he was picking up his riding-whip. This attractive
person was always accompanied by a formidable dog--of convex limbs,
shrunken lip, and suspicious demeanour--which he called Influenza, to
the excessive amusement of those to whom he related its characteristics.
For some inexplicable reason from the first it regarded my lower apparel
as being unsuitable for the ordinary occasions of life, and in spite
of the low hissing call by which its master endeavoured to attract
its attention to himself, it devoted its energies unceasingly to the
self-imposed task of removing them fragment by fragment. Nevertheless it
was a dog of favourable size and condition, and it need not therefore be
a matter for surprise that when the intellectual person Herbert took
his departure on the day in question it had to be assumed that it had
already preceded him. Having accomplished so much, this person found
little difficulty in preparing it tastefully in his own apartment, a