When Yan entered his arch some hours later his mother could not fail to perceive that a subtle change had come over his manner of behaving.  Much of the leisurely dignity had melted out of his footsteps, and he wore his hat and outer garments at an angle which plainly testified that he was a person who might be supposed to have a marked objection to returning home before the early hours of the morning.  Furthermore, as he entered he was chanting certain melodious words by which he endeavoured to convey the misleading impression that his chief amusement consisted in defying the official watchers of the town, and he continually reiterated a claim to be regarded as “one of the beardless goats.”  Thus expressing himself, Yan sank down in his appointed corner and would doubtlessly soon have been floating peacefully in the Middle Distance had not the door been again thrown open and a stranger named Chou-hu entered.

“Prosperity!” said Chou-hu courteously, addressing himself to Yan’s mother.  “Have you eaten your rice?  Behold, I come to lay before you a very attractive proposal regarding your son.”

“The flower attracts the bee, but when he departs it is to his lips that the honey clings,” replied the woman cautiously; for after Yan’s boastful words on entering she had a fear lest haply this person might be one on behalf of some guardian of the night whom her son had flung across the street (as he had specifically declared his habitual treatment of them to be) come to take him by stratagem.

“Does the pacific lamb become a wolf by night?” said Chou-hu, displaying himself reassuringly.  “Wrap your ears well round my words, for they may prove very remunerative.  It cannot be a matter outside your knowledge that the profession of conducting an assembly of blind mendicants from place to place no longer yields the wage of even a frugal existence in this city.  In the future, for all the sympathy that he will arouse, Yan might as well go begging with a silver bowl.  In consequence of his speechless condition he will be unable to support either you or himself by any other form of labour, and your line will thereupon become extinct and your standing in the Upper Air be rendered intolerable.”

“It is a remote contingency, but, as the proverb says, ’The wise hen is never too old to dread the Spring,’” replied Yan’s mother, with commendable prudence.  “By what means, then, may this calamity be averted?”

“The person before you,” continued Chou-hu, “is a barber and embellisher of pig-tails from the street leading to the Three-tiered Pagoda of Eggs.  He has long observed the restraint and moderation of Yan’s demeanour and now being in need of one to assist him his earliest thought turns to him.  The affliction which would be an insuperable barrier in all ordinary cases may here be used to advantage, for being unable to converse with those seated before him, or to hear their salutations, Yan will be absolved from the necessity of engaging in diffuse and refined conversation, and in consequence he will submit at least twice the number of persons to his dexterous energies.  In that way he will secure a higher reward than this person could otherwise afford and many additional comforts will doubtless fall into the sleeve of his engaging mother.”