“Satisfied with his accomplishment, and followed by a hired person of low class bearing the writings, which, by nature of the research necessary in fixing the various dates and places so that even the wary should be deceived, had occupied the greater part of a year, this now fully confident story-teller—­unmindful of the well-tried excellence of the inspired saying, ’Money is hundred-footed; upon perceiving a tael lying apparently unobserved upon the floor, do not lose the time necessary in stooping, but quickly place your foot upon it, for one fails nothing in dignity thereby; but should it be a gold piece, distrust all things, and valuing dignity but as an empty name, cast your entire body upon it’—­went forth to complete his great task of finally erasing from the mind and records of the Empire the hitherto venerated name of Lo Kuan Chang.  Entering the place of commerce of the one who seemed the most favourable for the purpose, he placed the facts as they would in future be represented before him, explained the undoubtedly remunerative fame that would ensue to all concerned in the enterprise of sending forth the printed books in their new form, and, opening at a venture the written leaves which he had brought with him, read out the following words as an indication of the similarity of the entire work: 

  “’Whai-Keng.  Friends, Chinamen, labourers who are engaged in
  agricultural pursuits, entrust to this person your acute and
  well-educated ears;

  “’He has merely come to assist in depositing the body of Ko’ung in
  the Family Temple, not for the purpose of making remarks about him
  of a graceful and highly complimentary nature;

  “’The unremunerative actions of which persons may have been guilty
  possess an exceedingly undesirable amount of endurance;

  “’The successful and well-considered almost invariably are
  involved in a directly contrary course;

  “’This person desires nothing more than a like fate to await
  Ko’ung.’

“When this one had read so far, he paused in order to give the other an opportunity of breaking in and offering half his possessions to be allowed to share in the undertaking.  As he remained unaccountably silent, however, an inelegant pause occurred which this person at length broke by desiring an expressed opinion on the matter.

“’O exceedingly painstaking, but nevertheless highly inopportune Kai Lung,’ he replied at length, while in his countenance this person read an expression of no-encouragement towards his venture, ’all your entrancing efforts do undoubtedly appear to attract the undesirable attention of some spiteful and tyrannical demon.  This closely-written and elaborately devised work is in reality not worth the labour of a single stroke, nor is there in all Peking a sender forth of printed leaves who would encourage any project connected with its issue.’

“’But the importance of such a fact as that which would clearly show the hitherto venerated Lo Kuan Chang to be a person who passed off as his own the work of an earlier one!’ cried this person in despair, well knowing that the deliberately expressed opinion of the one before him was a matter that would rule all others.  ’Consider the interest of the discovery.’