Lung can so mould a narrative in the telling that all the emotions are
conveyed therein without unduly disturbing the intellects of the
hearers."

"O amiable Hi Seng," replied Kai Lung with extreme affability,
"doubtless you are the most expert of water-carriers, and on a hot and
dusty day, when the insatiable desire of all persons is towards a
draught of unusual length without much regard to its composition, the
sight of your goat-skins is indeed a welcome omen; yet when in the
season of Cold White Rains you chance to meet the belated
chair-carrier who has been reluctantly persuaded into conveying
persons beyond the limit of the city, the solitary official watchman
who knows that his chief is not at hand, or a returning band of those
who make a practise of remaining in the long narrow rooms until they
are driven forth at a certain gong-stroke, can you supply them with
the smallest portion of that invigorating rice spirit for which alone
they crave? From this simple and homely illustration, specially
conceived to meet the requirements of your stunted and meagre
understanding, learn not to expect both grace and thorns from the
willow-tree. Nevertheless, your very immature remarks on the art of
story-telling are in no degree more foolish than those frequently
uttered by persons who make a living by such a practice; in proof of
which this person will relate to the select and discriminating company
now assembled an entirely new and unrecorded story--that, indeed, of
the unworthy, but frequently highly-rewarded Kai Lung himself."

"The story of Kai Lung!" exclaimed Wang Yu. "Why not the story of
Ting, the sightless beggar, who has sat all his life outside the
Temple of Miraculous Cures? Who is Kai Lung, that he should have a
story? Is he not known to us all here? Is not his speech that of this