d together in the days when you were recovering."

Ling, to whom the expressed desires of Mian were as the word of the
Emperor, instantly prepared the small and ornamental junk which was
fastened near for this purpose, and was about to step in, when a
presumptuous and highly objectionable hand restrained him.

"Behold," remarked a voice which Ling had some difficulty in ascribing
to any known person, so greatly had it changed from its usual tone,
"behold how the immature and altogether too-inferior Ling observes his
spoken and written assertions!"

At this low-conditioned speech, Ling drew his well-tempered sword
without further thought, in spite of the restraining arms of Mian,
but at the sight of the utterly incapable person Wang, who stood near
smiling meaninglessly and waving his arms with a continuous and backward
motion, he again replaced it.

"Such remarks can be left to fall unheeded from the lips of one who
bears every indication of being steeped in rice spirit," he said with
unprovoked dignity.

"It will be the plain duty of this expert and uncorruptible person
to furnish the unnecessary, but, nevertheless, very severe and
self-opinionated Chang-ch'un with a written account of how the
traitorous and deceptive Ling has endeavoured to break through the
thirty-fourth vessel of the liquids to be consumed and not to be
consumed," continued Wang with increased deliberation and an entire
absence of attention to Ling's action and speech, "and how by this
refined person's unfailing civility and resourceful strategy he has been
frustrated."

"Perchance," said Ling, after examining his thoughts for a short space,
and reflecting that the list of things to be done and not to be done was
to him as a blank leaf, "there may even be some small portion of that
which is accurate in his statement. In what manner," he continued,
addressing the really unendurable person, who was by this time preparing
to pass the night in the cool swamp by the river's edge, "does this
one endanger any detail of the written and sealed parchment by such an
action?"

"Inasmuch," replied Wang, pausing in the process of removing his
outer garments, "as the seventy-ninth--the intricate name given
to it escapes this person's tongue at the moment--but the
ninety-seventh--experLingknowswhamean--provides that any person, with or
without, attempting or not avoiding to travel by sea, lake, or river,
or to place himself in such a position as he may rea