Page:Ernest Bramah - Kai Lungs Golden Hours.djvu/271

 "And by an effete and unworthy custom almost immediately flow out again to reward the efforts of the successful," replied the Wearer of the Yellow in an accent of refined bitterness. "On other occasions it is possible to assist the overworked treasurer with a large and glutinous hand, but from time immemorial the claims of the competitors have been inviolable."

"Yet if by a heaven-sent chance none, or very few, reached the necessary standard of excellence?"

"Such a chance, whether proceeding from the Upper Air or the Other Parts would be equally welcome to a very hard-lined Ruler," replied the one who thus described himself. "Then listen, O Kong-hi, of the imperishable dynasty of Sung," said the stranger. "Thus was it laid upon me in the form of a spontaneous dream. For seven centuries the Book of the Observances has been the unvarying Classic of the examinations because during that period it has never been surpassed. Yet as the Empire has admittedly existed from all time, and as it would be impious not to agree that the immortal System is equally antique, it is reasonable to suppose that the Book of the Observances displaced an earlier and inferior work, and is destined in the cycle of time to be itself laid aside for a still greater."

"The inference is self-evident," admitted the Emperor uneasily, "but the logical development is one which this diffident Monarch hesitates to commit to spoken words."

"It is not a matter for words but for a stroke of the Vermilion Pencil," replied the other in a tone of inspired authority. "Across the faint and puny effusions of the past this person sees written in very large and