"
At this point, the person who is now concluding his obscure and
commonplace history, having spent his last piece of money on
joss-sticks and incense-paper, and being convinced of the presence of
the spirits of his ancestors, is inspired to make the following
prophecies: That Tieng Lin, who imposed upon him in the matter of
picture-making, shall come to a sudden end, accompanied by great
internal pains, after suffering extreme poverty; that the one who sits
in an easy-chair, together with his lesser one and all who make
stories for them, shall, while sailing to a rice feast during the
Festival of Flowers, be precipitated into the water and slowly
devoured by sea monsters, Klan-hi in particular being tortured in the
process; that Pel-li-Chen, the father of Tien, shall be seized with
the dancing sickness when in the presence of the august Emperor, and
being in consequence suspected of treachery, shall, to prove the truth
of his denials, be submitted to the tests of boiling tar, red-hot
swords, and of being dropped from a great height on to the Sacred
Stone of Goodness and Badness, in each of which he shall fail to
convince his judges or to establish his innocence, to the amusement of
all beholders.
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