“It is true, high-born one, this miserable individual had forgotten; but wait, and soon, Excellencies, you shall learn how this despicable individual was taught not to laugh. It being necessary for me to live somehow, I tried to earn a few cash by reciting passages from my plays at any small village where I could gather together an audience. I found that my fine declamations of heroic parts met with but little favour; but when I repeated some of the ancient jests of our comedian I met with some slighter success. It so happened that one day, starving and miserable, I stood on the cement threshing-floor before the inn of a small village, reciting the funniest jests I could remember, in a melancholy voice, to a dull and unappreciative audience of rustics, when, unnoticed by me, a high official, accompanied by his retinue, had ridden up to the outskirts of the crowd. It appeared that he listened to my merry jibes, and at the same time carefully scrutinised my miserable and utterly woe-begone appearance, and when I had finished my recital and collected what I could from my audience he entered the inn and summoned me to his presence by one of his servants. On entering the great man’s presence in the guest-room of the inn, he informed me that it was his pleasure to take me into his service, that I was to attach myself to his train, and that my duties would be made plain to me later on. Being in sorry straits I was willing to accept any fate, and so journeyed with his retinue to Foh Lin, of which town and district I found my new master to be magistrate. Arrived at his Yamen, I was given a room to myself and a generous meal, of which I stood greatly in need; after which I felt once more a man, my old confidence in myself returned, and when later a servant entered and burst into uncontrollable laughter, I felt ready to join in his merriment could I but learn the cause of it. “‘Come,’ I said, ‘speak! Why this outward seeming of internal merriment?’ “After several ineffectual attempts to explain, he managed in the intervals of laughter to tell me that to laugh was the greatest privilege imaginable in that Yamen. He then further explained that the magistrate was a man who had never experienced any of the emotions common to ordinary mortals, that he was the most amusing person himself; he knew no fear, no sorrow, no pain, and had never been known to laugh. The sound of merriment was most objectionable to him, and was invariably visited with the most rigorous punishments in the case of anyone who so far forgot himself as to laugh in his magisterial presence. That he had singled me out as fitted for his service because I could apparently tell funny stories and at the same time preserve a countenance like a well-worn boot.