book I saw yesterday, containing immodest drawings; they were, truly,
beautifully done. On the front page there figured also a whole lot of
characters. But I didn't carefully look at them; I simply noticed the
name of the person, who had executed them. It was, in fact, something or
other like Keng Huang. The pictures were, actually, exceedingly good!"

This allusion made Pao-yue exercise his mind with innumerable
conjectures.

"Of pictures drawn from past years to the present, I have," he said,
"seen a good many, but I've never come across any Keng Huang."

After considerable thought, he could not repress himself from bursting
out laughing. Then asking a servant to fetch him a pencil, he wrote a
couple of words on the palm of his hand. This done, he went on to
inquire of Hsueeh. P'an: "Did you see correctly that it read Keng Huang?"

"How could I not have seen correctly?" ejaculated Hsueeh P'an.

Pao-yue thereupon unclenched his hand and allowed him to peruse, what was
written in it. "Were they possibly these two characters?" he remarked.
"These are, in point of fact, not very dissimilar from what Keng Huang
look like?"

On scrutinising them, the company noticed the two words T'ang Yin, and
they all laughed. "They must, we fancy, have been these two characters!"
they cried. "Your eyes, Sir, may, there's no saying, have suddenly grown
dim!"

Hsueeh P'an felt utterly abashed. "Who could have said," he smiled,