Pao-ch'in promptly also smiled, and strung on:
No rain lo falls, but still a patter's heard.
Hsiang-yün was leaning over, indulging in such merriment that she was quite doubled up in two. But everybody else had realised that the trio was struggling for mastery, so without attempting to versify they kept their gaze fixed on them and gave way to laughter.
Tai-yü gave her another push to try and induce her to go on. "Do you also sometimes come to your wits' ends; and run to the end of your tether?" she went on to say. "I'd like to see what other stuff and nonsense you can come out with!"
Hsiang-yün however simply fell forward on Pao-ch'ai's lap and laughed incessantly.
"If you've got any gumption about you," Pao-ch'ai exclaimed, shoving her up, "take the second rhymes under 'Hsiao' and exhaust them all, and I'll then bend the knee to you."
"It isn't as if I were writing verses," Hsiang-yün laughed rising to her feet; "it's really as if I were fighting for very life."
"It's for you to come out with something," they all cried with a laugh.
T'an Ch'un had long ago determined in her mind that there could be no other antithetical sentences that she herself could possibly propose, and she forthwith set to work to copy out the verses. But as she passed the remark: "They haven't as yet been brought to a proper close," Li Wen took up the clue, as soon as she caught her words, and added the sentiment:
My wish is to record this morning's fun.