aged heart, and I could never do without him.' He entreats you,
therefore, worthy Sir, to, in your turn, plead with your illustrious
scion, and request him to let Ch'i Kuan go back, in order that the
feelings, which prompt the Prince to make such earnest supplications,
may, in the first place, be satisfied: and that, in the next, your mean
servant and his associates may be spared the fatigue of toiling and
searching."

At the conclusion of this appeal, he promptly made a low bow. As soon as
Chia Cheng found out the object of his errand, he felt both astonishment
and displeasure. With all promptitude, he issued directions that Pao-yue
should be told to come out of the garden. Pao-yue had no notion whatever
why he was wanted. So speedily he hurried to appear before his father.

"What a regular scoundrel you are!" Chia Cheng exclaimed. "It is enough
that you won't read your books at home; but will you also go in for all
these lawless and wrongful acts? That Ch'i Kuan is a person whose
present honourable duties are to act as an attendant on his highness the
Prince of Chung Shun, and how extremely heedless of propriety must you
be to have enticed him, without good cause, to come away, and thus have
now brought calamity upon me?"

These reproaches plunged Pao-yue in a dreadful state of consternation.
With alacrity he said by way of reply: "I really don't know anything
about the matter! To what do, after all, the two words Ch'i Kuan refer,
I wonder! Still less, besides, am I aware what entice can imply!"

As he spoke, he started crying.

But before Chia Cheng could open his month to pass any further remarks,