And of these ninety, eighty-nine added that, by a strange coincidence, they, too, were married; the remaining one saying that she was single. She, I take it, was a young widow; especially as she went on to say that she feared that I was a sad, bad, bold, fascinating wretch to speak in my half-frivolous, half-businesslike way of the holy estate of matrimony, which had been commended even of St. Paul. She added that she had often been told that her own eyes sloped a little. 16. Now you, my boy, know perfectly well that you are called Whack. Nor will it strike you that I have reformed the spelling of your Confucian name, Yung. As to the Ah, you will smile at its being mistaken by a Western barbarian for an interjection. But you do not know, and will be amazed to hear, that you have almond eyes. For you have never seen any other variety. This, therefore, strikes me as a fitting opportunity for explaining to you and the contemporary reader why I began with those seven mysterious words. You, at least, can hardly regret their use, since it was the means of showing you how many candidates there were for the honor of being your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother. The aspirants had never seen me, it is true. So that _I_ am not puffed up. Puffed up? Alas, yes, that is my trouble! Hence my long delay. Woman after woman has admitted that my smile is sweet, my voice low, my ways winning. His soul is beautiful, they say; then why _will_ he waddle when he walks? And waddling is mirth-provoking to every daughter of Eve, and laughter is fatal to love. 17. Not one word of the caballistic seven would I have written but for two very singular dreams which I had. And this is the way, so far as I can make out, that I chanced to dream the first one. The line of Bishop Berkeley, to the effect that the star of empire is constantly moving west, is naturally a favorite with patriots in this country. It is in everybody’s mouth. I have heard it cited, you could not imagine how often; so often, to put it plainly, that I would undertake to reckon up on my fingers and toes the number of times I have not heard it. Western journalists, especially, see their way to quoting it so frequently that they keep it always in stock, electro-typed and ready for use at a moment’s notice (when a commercial traveller registers at the local hotel, for instance). Not a _Weekly_ is set up as the organ of the pioneerest water-tank of a Western railway, but you shall see this verse figure in the first leader. Now it was this line which, though not the exciting cause of the first of my two dreams, gave direction to it, at least.