It came suddenly on me without warning, falling like a fit of madness, the restraint of months running riot, my pent-up emotions suddenly gave vent to themselves in peals of maniacal laughter. I rolled from side to side, now screaming like a parrot, again whooping like a child with the cough, hiccuping like any drunkard, squealing like an unbroken mule—every sound in the animal kingdom I seemed to reproduce as I rolled on the ground with streaming eyes before the horrified magistrate. He alone remained calm in the face of my shocking exhibition. Having dwelt upon the disappointment I had been to him he condemned me to death, pointing out that my ingratitude was the greater seeing how I had been advanced by his kindness, and having made a few quotations from the precepts of Confucius, which latter he rendered in rhyme, interlarded with some excruciatingly funny puns, he dismissed me, a limp, chuckling mass, from his presence. I now felt certain that I should end my days by a felon’s death, but the relief was so great that I passed the night in the greatest hilarity, enjoying the company of my friends, and entertaining them with a colossal farewell feast. Merrily the wine bowl passed, until the hour for the execution arrived, when I was led in the best of spirits to the potter’s field, and prepared to look my last on this beautiful world. “Soldiers were drawn up in a hollow square, the executioner stood stripped to the waist in the centre, and a little in advance of the troops sat the melancholy magistrate on a milk-white pony. The world never looked brighter, as the early morning sun shone on the bright uniforms, glittering weapons, and gaudy banners of the soldiery. As a special mark of favour I was allowed to be unbound, and advancing to the centre of the square, I politely saluted the magistrate and thanked him for all his past kindness. He, however, replied with some apt jest, which again aroused my mirth. Now, thought I, I will have my fling. My wits were peculiarly sharpened, and I turned to the executioner and twitted him on his solemn demeanour. The fellow answered me to the best of his dull intellect, but as I made my preparations in a leisurely manner I soon had him hopelessly trembling from a mixture of laughter and fear at offending the great man. Even the soldiers began to snigger at my repartee and the executioner’s obvious distress, when suddenly a change came over me. Why should I die? What evil had I done? A feeling of huge wrath sprang up in me against this unfeeling wretch who never smiled. With the madness engendered by this reaction of feeling, I dashed at the now helpless executioner, wrenched the sword from his grasp, and with a yell of a madman rushed towards the crowd. The soldiers, cowards to a man, drew back before my onslaught. Blinded with fury I bounded towards the hated tao-tai, seated calm as ever on his pony. The sword was raised to strike, and in another moment I should