malignity, and accepting this as an omen of departure, I withdrew
myself, bowing repeatedly, but offering no closer cordiality.

"Through a torn sleeve one drops a purse of gold," it is well said;
and as if to prove to a deeper end that misfortune is ever
double-handed, this incapable being, involved in thoughts of funereal
density, bent his footsteps to an inaccurate turning, and after much
wandering was compelled to pass the night upon a desolate heath--but
that would be the matter of another narrative.

With an insidious doubt whether, after all, the far-seeing Kwan
Kiang-ti's first impulse would not have been the most satisfactory
conclusion to the enterprise.

KONG HO.




LETTER VII


Concerning warfare, both as waged by ourselves and by a nation
devoid of true civilisation. The aged man and the meeting and
the parting of our ways. The instance of the one who expressed
emotion by leaping.



VENERATED SIRE,--You are omniscient, but I cannot regard the fear