“A little farther on our travellers saw a countryman who had just paid the price of some purchases he had succeeded in making, and was hurrying away with them, when the shopkeeper called after him, ‘Sir! sir! you have paid me by mistake in finer silver than we are accustomed to use here, and I have to allow you a considerable discount in consequence. Of course this is a mere trifle to a gentleman of your rank and position, but still for my own sake I must ask leave to make it all right with you.’
“‘Pray don’t mention such a small matter,’ replied the countryman, ‘but oblige me by putting the amount to my credit for use at a future date when I come again to buy some more of your excellent wares.’
“‘No, no,’ answered the shopkeeper, ‘you don’t catch old birds with chaff. That trick was played upon me last year by another gentleman, and to this day I have never set eyes upon him again, though I have made every endeavour to find out his whereabouts. As it is, I can now only look forward to repaying him in the next life; but if I let you take me in in the same way, why, when the next life comes and I am changed, maybe into a horse or a donkey, I shall have quite enough to do to find him, and your debt will go dragging on till the life after that. No, no, there is no time like the present; hereafter I might very likely forget what was the exact sum I owed you.’
“They continued to argue the point until the countryman consented to accept a trifle as a set-off against the fineness of his silver, and went away with his goods, the shopkeeper bawling after him as long as he was in sight that he had sold him inferior articles at a high rate, and was positively defrauding him of his money. The countryman, however, got clear away, and the shopkeeper returned to his grumbling at the iniquity of the age. Just then a beggar happened to pass, and so in anger at having been compelled to take more than his due he handed him the difference. ‘Who knows,’ said he, ‘but that the present misery of this poor fellow may be retribution for overcharging people in a former life?’
“‘Ah,’ said T‘ang, when he had witnessed the finale of this little drama, ‘truly this is the behaviour of gentlemen!’
“Our travellers then fell into conversation with two respectable-looking old men who said they were brothers, and accepted their invitation to go and take a cup of tea together. Their hosts talked eagerly about China, and wished to hear many particulars of ‘the first nation in the world.’ Yet, while expressing their admiration for the high literary culture of its inhabitants and their unqualified successes in the arts and sciences, they did not hesitate to stigmatise as unworthy a great people certain usages which appeared to them deserving of the utmost censure. They laughed at the superstitions of Fêng-Shui, and wondered how intelligent men could be imposed upon year after year by the mountebank professors of such baseless nonsense. ‘If it is true,’ said one of them, ‘that the selection of an auspicious day and a fitting spot for the burial of one’s father or mother is certain to bring prosperity to the survivors, how can you account for the fact that the geomancers themselves are always a low, poverty-stricken lot? Surely they would begin by appropriating the very best positions themselves, and so secure whatever good fortune might happen to be in want of an owner.’
“Then again with regard to bandaging women’s feet in order to reduce their size. ‘We can see no beauty,’ said they, ‘in such monstrosities as the feet of your ladies. Small noses are usually considered more attractive than large ones; but what would be said of a man who sliced a piece off his own nose in order to reduce it within proper limits?’
“And thus the hours slipped pleasantly away until it was time to bid adieu to their new friends and regain their ship.”
P‘ING SHAN LÊNG YEN