swerving firmness. "How
thus is the journey to be defrayed? In advance, assuredly."

"The requirement is unusual. Yet upon satisfactory oaths being
offered--"

"This person will pledge the repose of the spirits of his venerated
ancestors practically back to prehistoric times," agreed Lao Ting
readily. "From the third to the ninth day he will be absent from the
city and will take no part in anything therein. Should he eat his
words, may his body be suffocated beneath five cart-loads of books and
his weary ghost chained to that of a leprous mule. It is spoken."

"Truly. But it may as well be written also." With this expression of
narrow-minded suspicion Sheng-yin would have taken up one from a
considerable mass of papers lying near at hand, had not Lao Ting
suddenly restrained him.

"It shall be written with clarified ink on paper of a special
excellence," declared the student. "Take the brush, Seng-yin, and
write. It almost repays this person for the loss of a degree to behold
the formation of signs so unapproachable as yours."

"Lao Ting," replied the visitor, pausing in his task, "you are
occasionally inspired, but the weakness of your character results in a
lack of caution. In this matter, therefore, be warned: 'The crocodile
opens his jaws; the rat-trap closes his; keep yours shut.'"

When Lao Ting returned after a scrupulously observed six days of
absence he could not fail to become aware that the city was in an
uproar, and the evidence of this increased as he approached the cheap
and lightly esteemed quarter in which those of literary ambitions
found it convenient to reside. Remembering Sheng-yin's parting, he
forbore to draw attention to himself by questioning any, but when he
reached the door of his own dwelling he discovered the one of whom he
was thinking, standing, as it were, between the posts.

"Lao Ting," exclaimed Sheng-yin, without waiting to make any polite
reference to the former person's food or condition, "in spite of this
calamity you are doubtless prepared to carry out the spirit of your
oath?"

"Doubtless," replied Lao Ting affably. "Yet what is the nature of the
calamity referred to, and how does it affect the burden of my vow?"

"Has not the tiding reached your ear? The examinations, alas! have
been withheld for seven full days. Your journey has been in vain!"

"By no means!" declared the youth. "Debarred by your enticement from a
literary career this person turned his mind to other a