the competitors be in any way increased; yet in such a way the thing
took shape before his eyes. Knowing, however, that few persons would
be able to understand this action, and being desirous of not injuring
the estimable emotions of the obliging person who had come to him,
Ling made a number of polished excuses in declining, hiding the true
reason within himself. In this way he earned the powerful malignity of
the person in question, who would not depart until he had effected a
number of very disagreeable prophecies connected with unpropitious
omens and internal torments, all of which undoubtedly had a great
influence on Ling's life beyond that time.

Each day of the examination found Ling alternately elated or
depressed, according to the length and style of the essay which he had
written while enclosed in his solitary examination cell. The trials
each lasted a complete day, and long before the fifteen days which
composed the full examination were passed, Ling found himself half
regretting that he had not accepted his visitor's offer, or even
reviling the day on which he had abandoned the hereditary calling of
his ancestors. However, when, after all was over, he came to
deliberate with himself on his chances of attaining a degree, he could
not disguise from his own mind that he had well-formed hopes; he was
not conscious of any undignified errors, and, in reply to several
questions, he had been able to introduce curious knowledge which he
possessed by means of his exceptional circumstances--knowledge which
it was unlikely that any other candidate would have been able to make
himself master of.

At length the day arrived on which the results were to be made public;
and Ling, together with all the other competitors and many
distinguished persons, attended at the great Hall of Intellectual