vestige of emotion I crept unperceived to the ancestral hall of Sir
Philip and there shook hands affectionately with myself before each of
the nine ironclad warriors about its walls before I could revert to a
becoming state of trustworthy unconcern. That night in my own upper
chamber I spent many hours in testing my powers and studying more
remarkable attitudes of locust flight, and I even found to be within
myself some new attainments of life-like agility, such as feigning the
continuous note of defiance with which the insect meets his adversary,
as remaining poised in the air for an appreciable moment at the summit
of each leap, and of conveying to the body a sudden and disconcerting
sideway movement in the course of its ascent. So immersed did I become
in the achievement of a high perfection that, to my never-ending
self-reproach, I failed to notice a supernatural visitation of
undoubted authenticity; for the next morning it was widely admitted
that a certain familiar demon of the house, which only manifests its
presence on occasions of tragic omen, had been heard throughout the
night in warning, not only beating its head and body against the walls
and doors in despair, but raising from time to time a wailing cry of
soul-benumbing bitterness.

With every assurance that the next letter, though equally distorted in
style and immature in expression, will contain the record of a
deteriorated but ever upward-striving son's ultimate triumph.

KONG HO.




LETTER XI