number of young men will join together and form a kind of literary
club, meeting at certain periods to read essays or poems on subjects
previously agreed upon by all. We heard of one youth who, burning for
the poet's laurel, produced the following quatrain on _snow_, which
had been chosen as the theme for the day:--

The north-east wind blew clear and bright,
Each hole was filled up smooth and flat:
The black dog suddenly grew white,
The white dog suddenly grew--

"And here," said the poet, "I broke down, not being able to get an
appropriate rhyme to _flat_." A wag who was present suggested _fat_,
pointing out that the dog's increased bulk by the snow falling on his
back fully justified the meaning, and, what is of equal importance in
Chinese poetry, the antithesis.

[*] Namely, (1) the literati, (2) agriculturists, (3) artisans, and
(4) merchants or tradesmen.

[+] The first sentence of the Analects or Confucian Gospels.

Riddles and word-puzzles are largely used for the purpose of killing
time, the nature of the written language offering unlimited facilities
for the formation of the latter. Chinese riddles, by which term we
include conundrums, charades, _et hoc genus omne_, are similar to our
own, and occupy quite as large a space in the literature of the
country. They are generally in doggerel, of which the following may be
taken as a specimen, being like the last a word-for-word
translation:--