As the deities arranged, however, it chanced
that upon my way to a reputable quarter of the city where the
actuality of these matters can be learnt with the least evasion, my
footsteps were drawn aside by an incident which now permeates my
truth-laden brush to the exclusion of all else.
But in the first place, if it be permitted for a thoroughly
untrustworthy son to take so presumptuous a liberty with an
unvaryingly sagacious father, let this one entreat you to regard
everything he writes in a very wide-headed spirit of looking at the
matter from all round. My former letters will have readily convinced
you that much that takes place here, even among those who can afford
long finger-nails, would not be tolerated in Yuen-ping, and in order
to avoid the suspicion that I am suffering from a serious injury to
the head, or have become a prey to a conflicting demon, it will be
necessary to continue an even more highly-sustained tolerant
alertness. This person himself has frequently suffered the ill effects
of rashly assuming that because he is conducting the adventure in a
prepossessing spirit his efforts will be honourably received, as when
he courteously inquired the ages of a company of maidens into whose
presence he was led, and complimented the one whom he was desirous of
especially gratifying by assuring her that she had every appearance of
being at least twice the nine-and-twenty years to which she modestly
laid claim.
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