“The explanation is a convincing one,” replied Lao Ting.  “Might it not have been more satisfactory in the end, however, if the gracious person in question had clothed himself with the attributes of the examining chancellor or some high mandarin, so that he could have upheld my cause in any extremity?”

Without actually smiling, a form of entertainment that was contrary to his strict vow, the patriarchal anchorite moved his features somewhat at the youth’s innocence.

“Do not forget that it is written:  ’Though you set a monkey on horseback yet will his hands and feet remain hairy,’” he remarked.  “The one whose conduct we are discussing may well be aware of his own deficiencies, and know that if he adopted such a course a humiliating exposure would await him.  Do not have any fear for the future, however:  thus protected, this person is inspired to prophesy that you will certainly take a high place in the examinations. . . .  Indeed,” he added thoughtfully, “it might be prudent to venture a string of cash upon your lucky number.”

With this auspicious leave-taking Tzu-lu dismissed him, and Lao Ting returned to the city greatly refreshed in spirit by the encounter.  Instead of retiring to his home he continued into the more reputable ways beyond, it then being about the hour at which the affixers of official notices were wont to display their energies.

So it chanced indeed, but walking with his feet off the ground, owing to the obliging solitary’s encouragement, Lao Ting forgot his usual caution, and came suddenly into the midst of a band of these men at an angle of the paths.

“Honourable greetings,” he exclaimed, feeling that if he passed them by unregarded his purpose might be suspected.  “Have you eaten your rice?”

“How is your warmth and cold?” they replied courteously.  “Yet why do you arrest your dignified footsteps to converse with outcasts so illiterate as ourselves?”

“The reason,” admitted Lao Ting frankly, “need not be buried in a well.  Had I avoided the encounter you might have said among yourselves:  ’Here is one who shuns our gaze.  This, perchance, is he who of late has lurked within the shadow of our backs to bear away our labour.’  Not to create this unworthy suspicion I freely came among you, for, as the Ancient Wisdom says:  ’Do not adjust your sandals while passing through a melon-field, nor yet arrange your hat beneath an orange-tree.’”

“Yet,” said the leader of the band, “we were waiting thus in expectation of the one whom you describe.  The incredible leper who rules our goings has, even at this hour and notwithstanding that now is the appointed day and time for the gathering together of the Harmonious Constellation of Paste Appliers and Long Brush Wielders, thrust within our hands a double task.”

“May bats defile his Ancestral Tablets and goats propagate within his neglected tomb!” chanted the band in unison.  “May the sinews of his hams snap suddenly in moments of achievement!  May the principles of his warmth and cold never be properly adjusted but—­”