In this
feeble and incapable fashion they endeavour to stigmatize the
pure-minded Quen as one who acted directly contrary to his
deliberately spoken word, whereas the desired result was brought about
in a much more artful manner; they describe the commercially
successful Ah-Ping as a person of very inferior prudence, and one
easily imposed upon; while they entirely pass over, as a detail
outside the true facts, the written paper preserved among the sacred
relics in the Temple, which announces, among other gifts of a small
and uninviting character, 'Thirty thousand taels from an elderly
ginseng merchant of Lu-kwo, who desires to remain nameless, through
the hand of Quen-Ki-Tong.' The full happening in its real and harmless
face is now set forth for the first time.
"Some weeks after the recorded arrangement had been arrived at by
Ah-Ping and Quen, when the taels in question had been expended upon
the Temple and were, therefore, infallibly beyond recall, the former
person chanced to be passing through the public garden in Lu-kwo when
he heard a voice lifted up in the expression of every unendurable
feeling of dejection to which one can give utterance.
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