in great agony, a high fever, and in an inelegant attitude, with her right leg drawn up. To be accurate, the peerless Mah Su suffered from an acute attack of that, to Western ideas, fashionable complaint, appendicitis. Thus the erudite Wing Fung, he entered with many befitting and seemly obeisances. He remarked that it ill became his own vile person to profane the presence of the exalted wife of Lao Ng Tau, and that such meagre knowledge of the healing art as he possessed was almost rendered void by the august impressions created on his dull intellect by the evidences of supreme culture with which he found himself surrounded. Lao listened to the doctor with impatience, and having paid a compliment to the doctor’s knowledge of the classics with which his speech had been liberally sprinkled, begged him to see his wife and prescribe whatever might alleviate her pain. The doctor, having adjusted a pair of brass-rimmed spectacles which magnified about three hundred diameters, entered the room occupied by Mah Su. Having made a lengthy examination, he returned to Lao, and explained that there were two treatments possible. One consisted of rushing the patient up and down the room until she broke into a violent perspiration and then throwing ice-cold water over her, and the other consisted in maintaining absolute quietude while the soles of her feet were burnt with glowing charcoal. Wing Fung explained that no true decision could be arrived at until he had carefully consulted the stars, that this occupation would entail his own careful study during the night, and that the cost would amount to at least six taels. Lao handed over the six taels, and Wing Fung departed, leaving the never-to-be-replaced Mah Su still in agony and Lao not less distressed mentally. The following morning Wing Fung reappeared. He stated that he had consulted the stars, and that from their reading he had learnt that the most honourable Mah Su had been invaded by a most pestilential rat, that even now the rat was gnawing at her vitals, and that an additional ten taels would enable him so to study the stars that he would discover by what means the rat might be driven from its hiding-place in the stomach of the most honourable wife of the gracious Lao Ng Tau. Wing Fung received the ten taels and again departed, reappearing the next day somewhat dishevelled. We must understand that the learned doctor had now been some forty-eight hours without sleep—his walk was jagged and uncertain, his speech thick, and he had an unfortunate habit of chuckling, and hiccoughs somewhat marred his demands for fifteen more taels to carry out his researches among the stars. Now Lao got angry. He said that Wing Fung should conduct his researches among the stars right there on the roof, and he also ordered a coolie to see that the renowned Wing Fung did not doze, the coolie being supplied with a heavy and useful bamboo rod.