On one occasion he said to him, 'An officer of the State of Lu, you have not despised this small and narrow Wei, but have bent your steps hither to comfort and preserve it; vouchsafe to confer your benefits upon me.' Tsze-sze replied. 'If I should wish to requite your princely favour with money and silks, your treasuries are already full of them, and I am poor. If I should wish to requite it with good words, I am afraid that what I should say would not suit your ideas, so that I should speak in vain and not be listened to. The only way in which I can requite it, is by recommending to your notice men of worth.' The duke said. 'Men of worth are exactly what I desire.' 'Nay,' said Chi. 'you are not able to appreciate them.' 'Nevertheless,' was the reply, 'I should like to hear whom you consider deserving that name.' Tsze-sze replied, 'Do you wish to select your officers for the name they may have or for their reality?' 'For their reality, certainly,' said the duke. His guest then said, 'In the eastern borders of your State, there is one Li Yin, who is a man of real worth.' 'What were his grandfather and father?' asked the duke. 'They were husbandmen,' was the reply, on which the duke broke into a loud laugh, saying, ' I do not like husbandry. The son of a husbandman cannot be fit for me to employ. I do not put into office all the cadets of those families even in which office is hereditary.' Tsze-sze observed, 'I mention Li Yin because of his abilities; what has the fact of his forefathers being husbandmen to do with the case? And moreover, the duke of Chau was a great sage, and K'ang-shu was a great worthy. Yet if you examine their beginnings, you will find that from the business of husbandry they came forth to found their States. I did certainly have my doubts that in the selection of your officers you did not have regard to their real character and capacity.' With this the conversation ended. The duke was silent [1]. Tsze-sze was naturally led to Sung, as the K'ung family originally sprang from that principality. One account, quoted in 'The 1 See the 氏姓譜,卷一百二,孔氏,孔伋. Four Books, Text and Commentary, with Proofs and Illustrations [1],' says that he went thither in his sixteenth year, and having foiled an officer of the State, named Yo So, in a conversation on the Shu Ching, his opponent was so irritated at the disgrace put on him by a youth, that he listened to the advice of evil counsellors, and made an attack on him to put him to death. The duke of Sung, hearing the tumult, hurried to the rescue, and when Chi found himself in safety, he said, 'When king Wan was imprisoned in Yu-li, he made the Yi of Chau. My grandfather made the Ch'un Ch'iu after he had been in danger in Ch'an and Ts'ai. Shall I not make something when rescued from such a risk in Sung?' Upon this he made the Chung Yung in forty-nine p'ien. According to this account, the Chung Yung was the work of Tsze-sze's early manhood, and the tradition has obtained a wonderful prevalence.