Page:Mrs. Spring Fragrance - Far - 1912.djvu/321

 Hing, being a kind husband, thought to help his wife, who had two babies besides Ku Yum to look after.

But for all his troubled mind, the schoolmaster's sense of duty to his scholars was as keen as ever; also his sense of smell.

Suddenly he turned from the blackboard upon which he had been chalking.

"He who thinks only of good things to eat is an inferior man," and pushing back his spectacles, declared in a voice which caused his pupils to shake in their shoes:

"Some degenerate son of an honorable parent is eating unfragrant sugar."

"Unfragrant sugar! honorable sir!" exclaimed Han Wenti.

"Unfragrant sugar!" echoed little Yen Wing.

"Unfragrant sugar!"

"Unfragrant sugar!"

The murmur passed around the room.

"Silence!" commanded the teacher.

There was silence.

"Go Ek Ju," said the teacher, "why is thy miserable head bowed?"

"Because, O wise and just one, I am composing," answered Go Ek Ju.

"Read thy composition."

"A wild boar and a sucking pig were eating