Page:Ernest Bramah - Kai Lungs Golden Hours.djvu/252

 by a thunderbolt," said Thang-li more coldly. "From this day forth, also, be doubly guarded in the undeviating balance of your attitude. Restrain the swallow-like flights of your admittedly brilliant eyes, and control the movements of your expressive fan within the narrowest bounds of necessity. This person's position between the two is one of exceptional delicacy and he has by no means yet decided which to favour."

"In such a case," inquired Fa Fei, caressing his pig-tail persuasively, "how does a wise man act, and by what manner of omens is he influenced in his decision?"

"In such a case," replied Thang-li, "a very wise man does not act; but maintaining an impassive countenance, he awaits the unrolling of events until he sees what must inevitably take place. It is thus that his reputation for wisdom is built up."

"Furthermore," said Fa Fei hopefully, "the ultimate pronouncement rests with the guarding deities?"

"Unquestionably," agreed Thang-li. "Yet, by a venerable custom, the esteem of the maiden's parents is the detail to which the suitors usually apply themselves with the greatest diligence."

Of the two persons thus referred to by Thang-li, one, Tsin Lung, lived beneath the sign of the Righteous Ink Brush. By hereditary right Tsin Lung followed the profession of copying out the more difficult Classics in minute characters upon parchments so small that an entire library could be concealed among the folds of a garment, in this painstaking way enabling many persons who might otherwise have failed at the public examinations and been driven to spend an idle and perhaps even dissolute life, to pass with honourable