"O Kin Yen," exclaimed the lesser one, "this matter rests not here. It
is a thing beyond the sphere of the individual who is addressing you.
All he can tell is that the graceful Tong-king withdrew his
exceedingly tedious story for some reason at the final moment, and as
your eminent drawings had been paid for, my chief of the inner office
decided to use them with this story of Klan-hi. But surely it cannot
be that there is aught in the story to displease your illustrious
personality?"
"Judge for yourself," this person said, "first understanding that the
two immaculate characters figuring as the personages of the narrative
are exact copies of this dishonoured person himself and of the willowy
Tien, daughter of the vastly rich Pe-li-Chen, whom he was hopeful of
marrying."
Selecting one of the least offensive of the passages in the work, this
unhappy person read the following immature and inelegant words:
"This well-satisfied writer of printed leaves had a
highly-distinguished time last night. After Chow had departed to see
about food, and the junk had been fastened up at the lock of Kilung,
on the Yang-tse-Kiang, he and the round-bodied Shang were journeying
along the narrow path by the river-side when the right leg of the
graceful and popular person who is narrating these events disappeared
into the river.
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