The superstitious here, this person may
describe, when they wish to send messages from one to another,
inscribe upon the outer cover a written representation of the one
whose habitation they require, and after affixing a small paper
talisman, drop it into a hole in the nearest wall, in the hope that it
may be ultimately conveyed to the appointed spot, either by the
services of the charitably-disposed passer-by, or by the intervention
of the beneficent deities.
With a multiplicity of greetings and many abject expressions of a
conscious inferiority, and attested by an unvarying thumb-mark.
KONG HO.
(Effete branch of a pure and magnanimous trunk.)
To Kong Ah-Paik, reclining beneath the sign of the Lead Tortoise, in a
northerly direction beyond the Lotus Beds outside the city of
Yuen-ping. The Middle Flowery Kingdom.
LETTER II
Concerning the ill-destined manner of existence of the hound
Hercules. The thoughtlessly-expressed desire of the entrancing
maiden and its effect upon a person of susceptible refinement.
The opportune (as it may yet be described) visit of one
Herbert. The behaviour of those around. Reflections.
VENERATED SIRE (whose large right hand is continuously floating in
spirit over the image of this person's dutiful submission),--
Doubtless to your all-consuming prescience, it will at once become
plain that I have abandoned the place of residence from which I
directed my former badly-written and offensively-constructed letter,
the house of the sympathetic and resourceful Maidens Blank, where in
return for an utterly inadequate sum of money, produced at stated
intervals, this very much inferior person was allowed to partake of a
delicately-balanced and somewhat unvarying fare in the company of the
engaging of both sexes, and afterwards to associate on terms of
honourable equality with them in the chief apartment.
Pages:
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31