For acting in the manner designated--as touching the noises both
inside and out, the set dance with upraised knives, the casting to
earth of himself, and being myself in turn vanquished by the aged
female, with an added compact that from time to time I should be led
by a chain and shown to the people from a raised platform--we agreed
upon a daily reward of two pieces of silver, an adequacy of food, and
a certain ambiguously-referred-to share of the gain. It need not be
denied that with so favourable an opportunity of introducing passages
from the Classics a much less sum would have been accepted, but having
obtained this without a struggle, the one now recounting the facts
raised the opportune suggestion of an inscribed placard, in order to
fulfil the portent foreshadowed by William Greyson.

"Oh, we'll star you, never fear," assented the accommodating
personage, and having by this time reached that spot upon the Heath
where his Domestic Altar had been raised, we entered.

"All the most distinguished actors in this country take another name,"
he said reflectively, when he had drawn forth a parchment of
praiseworthy dimensions and ink of three colours, "and though I have
nothing to say against Kong Ho Tsin Cheng Quank Paik T'chun Li Yuen
Nung for quiet unostentatious dignity, it doesn't have just the grip
and shudder that we want. Now how does 'Fang' strike you?" and upon my
courteous acquiescence that this indeed united within it those
qualities which he required, he traced its characters in red ink upon
a lavish scale.

"'Fang Hung Sin' about fits the idea of snap and bloodthirstiness, I
should say," he continued, and using the brush and all the colours
with an expert proficiency which would infallibly gain him an early