The next section took us into the street:-- "When the school hours are over go out, as you came in, quietly, softly, and decently." "When you come near a mob, walk to the other side of the street, and never concern yourself what's the matter." "Oh, I like that!" said Kenneth. "What about a horse down?" "I saw a chap being run in the other day," said Christopher. "Never whistle or sing as you walk alone; for these are marks of clownishness and folly." My own childhood is not so very remote, but it is far enough away for vast changes to have occurred in the relations of parents and children. We were all happy and familiar enough, but there was none of the freedom of speech between young and old that is now encouraged. Dignity and age are equally out of fashion. We are all young to-day and almost more terrified of being out of things than of being accused of a want of humour. The last thing to go is juvenility. Afterwards, I told the children a little about the Chinese pride in their parents and the high honour in which good sons are held in China. Not the least entertaining part of my Chinese book deals with filial piety, of which that people have Twenty-four Examples for the edification of youth. I told them about Lao Lai Tzŭ, of the sixth century B.C., who "at seventy was still accustomed"--"still" is good--"to divert his aged parents by dressing himself up and cutting capers before them." Christopher at once said that they did that very often, but he had to admit that the prime object was to divert themselves. Huang Hsiang, another of the Twenty-four Examples, who died A.D. 122, greatly delighted their sense of the ridiculous, for he "used to fan his parents' pillow in summer to make it cool, and get into their bed in winter to take the chill off." Other examples I kept to myself, such as Tsing Tsan of the fifth century B.C., who maintained that one should remain single, since "with the possession of wife and children, the earnestness of a pious son would be likely to wane." None the less he married, but regained consistency by divorcing his wife "for serving up to his mother-in-law some badly-stewed pears." This would have been beyond them; but I sent Kenneth into roars of laughter by the story of the youthful Emperor who amused himself by shooting blunted arrows at the stomach of the sleeping Regent--an indiscretion which led to a speedy succession. There was a beautiful evening light when Naomi and I walked back: the light that always makes me sad, and I was sad too to think of the contrast between that noisy, happy home, so very full of life and high spirits, and my own solitary silent rooms; yes, and Naomi's too. There is something wrong in a civilisation which makes it so easily possible for so sweetly maternal a woman never to have children of her own. I slipped my arm through hers and we walked without speaking. CHAPTER XX AN UNEXPECTED CHEQUE LEADS TO PLANS OF TRAVEL, AND NAOMI AND I ACCEPT A RESPONSIBILITY