Kai Lung’s Golden Hours by Ernest Bramah (an ebook reader .TXT) 📕

Being unable to procure one she was about to give way to an ignoble despair when chance put into her hands this bar, which only requires bringing down to the necessary size.’ Encouraged by this painstaking example Tsung returned to his books and in due course became a high official.”

“Doubtless in the time of his prosperity he retraced his footsteps and lavishly rewarded the one to whom he was thus indebted,” suggested Hoa-mi gracefully.

“Doubtless,” admitted Lao Ting, “but the detail is not pursued to so remote an extremity in the Classic. The delicate poise of the analogy is what is chiefly dwelt upon, the sign for a needle harmonizing with that for official, and there being a similar balance between crowbar and books.”

“Your words are like a page written in vermilion ink,” exclaimed Hoa-mi, with a sideway-expressed admiration.

“Alas!” he declared, with conscious humility, “my style is meagre and almost wholly threadbare. To remedy this, each day I strive to perfect myself in the correct formation of five new written signs. When equipped with a knowledge of every one there is I shall be competent to write so striking and original an essay on any subject that it will no longer be possible to exclude my name from the list of official appointments.”

“It will be a day of well-achieved triumph for the spirits of your expectant ancestors,” said Hoa-mi sympathetically.

“It will also have a beneficial effect on my own material prospects,” replied Lao Ting, with a commendable desire to awaken images of a more specific nature in the maiden’s imagination. “Where hitherto it has been difficult to support one, there will then be a lavish profusion for two. The moment the announcement is made, my impatient feet will carry me to this spot. Can it be hoped⁠—?”

“It has long been this one’s favourite resort also,” confessed Hoa-mi, with every appearance of having adequately grasped Lao Ting’s desired inference, “Yet to what number do the written signs in question stretch?”

“So highly favoured is our unapproachable language that the number can only be faintly conjectured. Some claim fivescore thousand different written symbols; the least exacting agree to fourscore thousand.”

“You are all-knowing,” responded the maiden absently. With her face in an opposing direction her lips moved rapidly, as though she might be in the act of addressing some petition to a Power. Yet it is to be doubted if this accurately represents the nature of her inner thoughts, for when she again turned towards Lao Ting the engaging frankness of her expression had imperceptibly deviated, as she continued:

“In about nine and forty years, then, O impetuous one, our converging footsteps will doubtless again encounter upon this spot. In the meanwhile, however, this person’s awaiting father is certainly preparing something against her tardy return which the sign for a crowbar would fittingly represent.”

Then urging the water-buffalo to increased exertion she fled, leaving Lao Ting a prey to emotions of a very distinguished intensity.

In spite of the admittedly rough-edged nature of Hoa-mi’s leave-taking, Lao Ting retraced his steps in an exalted frame of mind. He had spoken to the maiden and heard her incomparable voice. He now knew her name and the path leading to her father’s house. It only remained for him to win a position worthy of her acceptance (if the Empire could offer such a thing), and their future happiness might be regarded as assured.

Thus engaged, Lao Ting walked on, seeing within his head the arrival of the bridal chair, partaking of the well-spread wedding feast, hearing the felicitations of the guests: “A hundred sons and a thousand grandsons!” Something white fluttering by the wayside recalled him to the realities of the day. He had reached the buildings of the outer city, and on a wall before him a printed notice was displayed.

It has already been set forth that the few solitary cash which from time to time fell into the student’s sleeve were barely sufficient to feed his thirsty brush with ink. For the material on which to write and to practise the graceful curves essential to a style he was driven to various unworthy expedients. It had thus become his habit to lurk in the footsteps of those who affix public proclamations in the ways and spaces of the city, and when they had passed on to remove, as unostentatiously as possible, the more suitable pronouncements and to carry them to his own abode. For this reason he regarded every notice from a varying angle, being concerned less with what appeared upon it than with what did not appear. Accordingly he now crossed the way and endeavoured to secure the sheet that had attracted his attention. In this he was unsuccessful, however, for he could only detach a meagre fragment.

When Lao Ting reached his uninviting room the last pretence of daylight had faded. He recognized that he had lost many precious moments in Hoa-mi’s engaging society, and although he would willingly have lost many more, there was now a deeper pang in his regret that he could not continue his study further into the night. As this was impossible, he drew his scanty night coverings around him and composed his mind for sleep, conscious of an increasing rigour in the air; for, as he found when the morning came, one who wished him well, passing in his absence, had written a lucky saying on a stone and cast it through the paper window.

When Lao Ting awoke it was still night, but the room was no longer entirely devoid of light. As his custom was, an open page lay on the floor beside him, ready to be caught up eagerly with the first gleam of day; above this a faint but sufficient radiance now hung, enabling him to read the written signs. At first the student regarded the surroundings with some awe, not doubting that this was in the nature of a visitation, but presently he discovered that the light was provided by a living creature, winged but docile, which carried a