tisfaction
that it struck the verse beginning, "The Rewards of a Quiescent and
Mentally-introspective Life are Unbounded--"

When Yan entered his arch some hours later his mother could not fail
to perceive that a subtle change had come over his manner of behaving.
Much of the leisurely dignity had melted out of his footsteps, and he
wore his hat and outer garments at an angle which plainly testified
that he was a person who might be supposed to have a marked objection
to returning home before the early hours of the morning. Furthermore,
as he entered he was chanting certain melodious words by which he
endeavoured to convey the misleading impression that his chief
amusement consisted in defying the official watchers of the town, and
he continually reiterated a claim to be regarded as "one of the
beardless goats." Thus expressing himself, Yan sank down in his
appointed corner and would doubtlessly soon have been floating
peacefully in the Middle Distance had not the door been again thrown
open and a stranger named Chou-hu entered.

"Prosperity!" said Chou-hu courteously, addressing himself to Yan's
mother. "Have you eaten your rice? Behold, I come to lay before you a
very attractive proposal regarding your son."

"The flower attracts the bee, but when he departs it is to his lips
that the honey clings," replied the woman cautiously; for after Yan's
boastful words on entering she had a fear lest haply this person might
be one on behalf of some guardian of the night whom her son had flung
across the street (as he had specifically declared his habitual
treatment of them to be) come to take him by stratagem.

"Does the pacific lamb become a wolf by night?" said Chou-hu,
displaying himself reassuringly. "Wrap your ears well round my words,
for they may prove very remunerative. It cannot be a matter outside
your knowledge that the profession of conducting an assembly of blind
mendicants from place to place no longer yields the wage of even a
frugal existence in this city. In the future, for all the sympathy
that he will arouse, Yan might as well go begging with a silver bowl.
In consequence of his speechless condition he will be unable to
support either you or himself by any other form of labour, and your
line will thereupon become extinct and your standing in the Upper Air
be rendered intolerable."

"It is a remote contingency, but, as the proverb says, 'The wise hen
is never too old to dread the Spring,'" replied Yan's