Frequently in matters of commerce which have appeared to promise very
satisfactorily at the beginning this person has been induced to
entrust sums of money to others, when he had hoped from the
indications and the manner of speaking that the exact contrary would
be the case; and in one instance he was released at a vast price from
the torture dungeon in Canton--where he had been thrown by the subtle
and unconscientious plots of one who could not relate stories in so
accurate and unvarying a manner as himself--on the day before that on
which all persons were freely set at liberty on account of exceptional
public rejoicing. Yet in spite of these and many other very
unendurable incidents, this impetuous and ill-starred being never felt
so great a desire to retire to a solitary place and there disfigure
himself permanently as a mark of his unfeigned internal displeasure,
as on the occasion when he endured extreme poverty and great personal
inconvenience for an entire year in order that he might take away face
from the memory of a person who was so placed that no one expressed
any interest in the matter.
"Since then this very ill-clad and really necessitous person has
devoted himself to the honourable but exceedingly arduous and in
general unremunerative occupation of story-telling.
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