Here is humour again: Tung-fang So, a censor in the first century B.C., "on one occasion drank off some elixir of immortality which belonged to the Emperor, and the latter in a rage ordered him to be put to death. But Tung-fang So smiled and said, 'If the elixir was genuine, your Majesty can do me no harm; if it was not, what harm have I done?'" Of Chao Kao, who died B.C. 207, a famous rebel, we have this sinister variant of Andersen's story of the Emperor's new clothes: "Tradition says that on one occasion, in order to discover which of the officials at the Court of Hu Hai, the Second Emperor, would be likely to defy him, he presented the Emperor with a stag, saying that it was a horse. His Majesty, bewildered by the absurdity of the statement, appealed to his surrounding courtiers. Those who were bold enough to say that it was a stag were marked down by Chao Kao for destruction." Are they not an interesting company? Let me end this taste by the celebration of one of the most attractive of all--Ch'ēn Tsun. Ch'ēn Tsun, who died A.D. 25, was distinguished as a letter-writer, but still more famous for his love of good company. That, however, is nothing: the characteristic that fills me with pleasure is the following: "He used to keep his guests with him, even against their will, by throwing the linch-pins of their carriages into a well." What a delightful trait--or, rather, habit! CHAPTER IV DESCRIBING MR. AND MRS. DUCKIE, ALF PINTO, BEATRICE, AND ERN Mrs. Duckie has only one fault. Her virtues are many, chief among them an almost fervid cleanliness, displaying itself in the spotlessness of the rooms and an affection for fresh towels that is Continental--certainly very un-English. She believes, too, in open windows, to a point inconceivable in a retired cook. But she has a fault, and that is talkativeness--more than talkativeness, for she spins a kind of gummy web of words from which the listener, unless he is more ruthless than I can be, has the greatest difficulty in disentangling himself. The law of association governing her mind, as it does that of so many feminine talkers, one thing leads to another. To me, who have nothing to do--who am out, so to speak, for no other purpose than to occupy a stall in the theatre of life and watch the play--this does not matter very much, and I have already learned the trick of listening with one ear only, and making by a natural reflex action the expected sounds due from common politeness; but I can imagine it driving another and busier man mad, and I wonder what Mr. Dabney's short way with her is.