pon handed the fan to Ten-teh, who read, written in
characters of surpassing beauty and exactness, the proverb:
"Well-guarded lips, patient alertness and a heart conscientiously
discharging its accepted duty: these three things have a sure reward."

At that moment Ten-teh's wife saw that he carried something beyond his
creel and discovering the man-child she cried out with delight,
pouring forth a torrent of inquiries and striving to possess it. "A
tale half told is the father of many lies," exclaimed Ten-teh at
length, "and of the greater part of what you ask this person knows
neither the beginning nor the end. Let what is written on the fan
suffice." With this he explained to her the meaning of the characters
and made their significance clear. Then without another word he placed
the man-child in her arms and led her back into the house.

From that time Hoang, as he was thenceforward called, was received
into the household of Ten-teh, and from that time Ten-teh prospered.
Without ever approaching a condition of affluence or dignified ease,
he was never exposed to the penury and vicissitudes which he had been
wont to experience; so that none had need to go hungry or ill-clad. If
famine ravaged the villages Ten-teh's store of grain was miraculously
maintained; his success on the lagoons was unvaried, fish even leaping
on to the structure of the raft. Frequently in dark and undisturbed
parts of the house he found sums of money and other valuable articles
of which he had no remembrance, while it was no uncommon thing for
passing merchants to leave bales of goods at his door in mistake and
to meet with some accident which prevented them from ever again
visiting that part of the country. In the meanwhile Hoang grew from
infancy into childhood, taking part with Ten-teh in all his pursuits,
yet even in the most menial occupation never wholly shaking off the
air of command and nobility of bearing which lay upon him. In strength
and endurance he outpaced all the youths around, while in the
manipulation of the raft and the dexterous handling of the cormorants
he covered Ten-teh with gratified shame. So excessive was the devotion
which he aroused in those who knew him that the deficient youth wept
openly if Hoang chanced to cough or sneeze; and it is even asserted
that on more than one occasion high officials, struck by the authority
of his presence, though he might be in the act of carrying fish along
the road, hastily descended