"Why, it isn't worth a jarful," smiled Hsüeh P'an at these words.
"Favour us with some other good song!"
"Listen to what I have to suggest," Pao-yü interposed, a smile on his lips. "If you go on drinking in this reckless manner, we will easily get drunk and there will be no fun in it. I'll take the lead and swallow a large cupful and put in force a new penalty; and any one of you who doesn't comply with it, will be mulcted in ten large cupfuls, in quick succession!"
Speedily rising from the banquet, he poured the wine for the company. Feng Tzu-ying and the rest meanwhile exclaimed with one voice: "Quite right! quite right!"
Pao-yü then lifted a large cup and drained it with one draught. "We will now," he proposed, "dilate on the four characters, 'sad, wounded, glad and joyful.' But while discoursing about young ladies, we'll have to illustrate the four states as well. At the end of this recitation, we'll have to drink the 'door cup' over the wine, to sing an original and seasonable ballad, while over the heel taps, to make allusion to some object on the table, and devise something with some old poetical lines or ancient scrolls, from the Four Books or the Five Classics, or with some set phrases."
Hsüeh P'an gave him no time to finish. He was the first to stand up and prevent him from proceeding. "I won't join you, so don't count me; this is, in fact, done in order to play tricks upon me."
Yün Erh, however, also rose to her feet and shoved him down into his seat.
"What are you in such a funk for?" she laughed. "You're fortunate enough to be able to drink wine daily, and can't you, forsooth, even come up to me? Yet I mean to recite, by and bye, my own share. If you say what's right, well and good; if you don't, you will simply have to swallow several cups of wine as a forfeit, and is it likely you'll die from drunkenness? Are you, pray, going now to disregard this rule and to drink, instead, ten large cups; besides going down to pour the wine?"
One and all clapped in applause. "Well said!" they shouted.
After this, Hüeh P'an had no way out of it and felt compelled to resume his seat.
They then heard Pao-yü recite: