A group of three objects consisting of a pencil brush (_pi_), a cake of ink (_ting_) and a _ju-i_ sceptre crossed one over the other (Fig. 4), occurs both in the field of the decoration and as a mark under the base. It is a pure rebus, reading _pi ting ju i_, may things be fixed (_ting_) as you wish (_ju i_, lit. according to your idea). Another obvious rebus which occurs as a mark (Fig. 5) consists of two peaches and a bat (double longevity and happiness), and floral designs are very commonly arranged so as to suggest rebus phrases. [Illustration: Fig. 4] [Illustration: Fig. 5] But the Chinese decorator did not always express himself in riddles. Inscriptions are frequent on all forms of decorative work, as is only natural in a country where calligraphy ranks among the highest branches of art. To the foreign eye Chinese writing will not perhaps appear so ornamental as the beautiful Neshky characters which were freely used for decorative purposes on Persian wares; but for all that, its decorative qualities are undeniable, and to the Chinese who worship the written character it is a most attractive kind of ornament. Sometimes the surface of a vessel is almost entirely occupied by a long inscription treating of the ware or of the decoration which occupies the remaining part; but more often the writing is limited to an epigram or a few lines of verse. The characters as a rule are ranged in columns and read from top to bottom, the columns being taken from left to right; and rhyming verse is written in lines of three, five or seven characters each. The inscriptions are often attested by the name or the seal of the author. The Emperor Ch’ien Lung, a prolific writer of verses, indited many short poems on the motives of porcelain decoration, and these have been copied on subsequent pieces. As for the style of writing, the ordinary script is the _k’ai shu_, which dates from the Chin dynasty (265–419 A.D.), but there are besides many inscriptions in which the archaic seal characters _chuan tzŭ_ are employed, or at least hybrid modern forms of them; and there is the cursive script, known as _ts’ao shu_ or grass characters, which is said to have been invented in the first century B.C. The seal and the grass characters are often extremely difficult to translate, and require a special study, which even highly educated Chinese do not profess to have mastered.