Page:Frank Owen - The Scarlett Hill, 1941.djvu/248

RV 243 (LI PO) "You misunderstand. I'd toss Li Po to the fishes as he chanted his songs."

"If I ever go fishing," said Chiu Sui, who had reclaimed his tongue, "it will be in the manner of Jen Kung Tzu of old who fished in the sea with a cable on which fifty oxen were fixed as bait."

"Too much exertion," broke in Ho Chih-chang. "For myself simple bait would do."

"For example a hump-backed horse," suggested Li Po.

"Do you think I would want a hump-backed fish?"

"Why spoil the taste of wine by discussing fish?" asked Li Shih-chih irritably. He had been glad to leave the Imperial Court, even though he had been a Minister of State, and had been ennobled as a Duke.

Li Lin-fu, the Premier, though expressing friendship, was jealous of him. He was a good poet, and he imagined that he was a rival. Jealousy is an attribute of puny souls. Lin-fu persuaded him to open a gold-mine in Shensi. When Shih-chih did so, Lin-fu had rushed to the Emperor and told him what was happening.

"Your Majesty," he declared, "Li Shih-chih is a traitor to be drawing gold from the earth of the very province in which your Majesty was born."

Ming Huang frowned upon the enterprise and ordered that the mine be closed. Naturally Shih-chih lost favor. He welcomed the opportunity to leave the Court in the wake of Li Po.

The religious member of the Eight Immortals was Su Chin, a Buddhist priest, who, despite the fact that RV 243 (243)