isconcerting irregularity of
movement, and on the day of his visit he had shorn away the venerable
moustaches of the baker Heng-cho under a mistaken impression as to the
reality of things and a wavering vision of their exact position. Now
the baker had been inordinately proud of his long white moustaches and
valued them above all his possessions, so that, invoking the spirits
of his ancestors to behold his degradation and to support him in his
resolve, and calling in all the passers-by to bear witness to his
oath, he had solemnly bound himself either to cut down Chou-hu
fatally, or, should that prove too difficult an accomplishment, to
commit suicide within his shop. This twofold danger thoroughly
stupefied Chou-hu and made him incapable of taking any action beyond
consuming further and more unstinted portions of rice-spirit and
rending article after article of his apparel until his wife Tsae-che
modestly dismissed such persons as loitered, and barred the outer
door.

"Open your eyes upon the facts by which you are surrounded, O
contemptible Chou-hu," she said, returning to his side and standing
over him. "Already your degraded instincts have brought us within
measurable distance of poverty, and if you neglect your business to
avoid Heng-cho, actual want will soon beset us. If you remain openly
within his sight you will certainly be removed forcibly to the Upper
Air, leaving this inoffensive person destitute and abandoned, and if
by the exercise of unfailing vigilance you escape both these dangers,
you will be reserved to an even worse plight, for Heng-cho in
desperation will inevitably carry out the latter part of his threat,
dedicating his spirit to the duty of continually haunting you and
frustrating your ambitions here on earth and calling to his assistance
myriads of ancestors and relations to torment you in the Upper Air."

"How attractively and in what brilliantly-coloured outlines do you
present the various facts of existence!" exclaimed Chou-hu, with
inelegant resentment. "Do not neglect to add that, to-morrow being the
occasion of the Moon Festival, the inexorable person who owns this
residence will present himself to collect his dues, that, in
consequence of the rebellion in the south, the sagacious viceroy has
doubled the price of opium, that some irredeemable outcast has carried
away this person's blue silk umbrella, and then doubtless the alluring
picture of internal felicity around the Ancestral Altar o