"In that case," she replied in high-souled liberality, while her eyes scintillated towards me with a really all-overpowering radiance, "I will forgive you.""We have an old but very appropriate saying, 'To every man the voice of one maiden carries further than the rolling of thunder,'" I remarked in a significantly restrained tone; for, although conscious that the circumstance was becoming more menace-laden than I had any previous intention, I found myself to be incapable of extrication."Florence--""Oh," she exclaimed quickly, raising her polished hand with an undeniable gesture of reproof, "you must not call me by my christian name, Mr.Ho.""Yet," replied this person, with a confessedly stubborn inelegance, "you call me by the name of Ho."Her eyes became ox-like in an utter absence of almond outline."Yes," she said gazing, "but that--that is not your christian name, is it?""In a position of speaking--this one being as a matter of fact a discreditable follower of the sublime Confucius--it may be so regarded," I answered, "inasmuch as it is the milk-name of childhood.""But you always put it last," she urged.
"Assuredly," I replied."Being irrevocably born with the family name of Kong, it is thought more reasonable that that should stand first.After that, others are attached as the various contingencies demand it, as Ho upon participating in the month-age feast, the book-name of Tsin at a later period, Paik upon taking a degree, and so forth.""I am very sorry, Mr.Kong," said the maiden, adding, with what at thetime certainly struck this person as shallow-witted prejudice."Of course it is really quite your own fault for being so tospy-turvily arranged in every way.But, to return to the subject, why should not one speak of one's heart?""Because," replied this person, colouring deeply, and scarcely able to control his unbearable offence that so irreproachably-moulded a creature should openly refer to the detail, "because it is a gross and unrefined particular, much more internal and much less pleasantly-outlined than those extremities whose spoken equivalent shall henceforth be an abandoned word from my lips.""But, in any case, it is not the actual organ that one infers," protested the maiden."As the seat of the affections, passions, virtues, and will, it is the conventional emblem of every thought and emotion.""By no means," I cried, forgetting in the face of so heterodox an assertion that it would be well to walk warily at every point."That is the stomach.""Ah!" exclaimed the maiden, burying her face in a gracefully- perfumed remnant of lace, to so overwhelming a degree that for the moment I feared she might become involved in the dizzy falling."Never, by any mischance, use that word again the society of the presentable, Mr.Kong.""The ceremonial usage of my own land of the Heavenly Dynasty is proverbially elaborate," I said, with a gesture of self-abasement, "but in comparison with yours it may be regarded as an undeviating walk when opposed to a stately and many-figured dance.Among the company of the really excessively select (in which must ever be included the one whom I am now addressing), it becomes difficult for an outcast of my illimitable obtuseness to move to one side or the other without putting his foot into that.""Oh no," exclaimed the maiden, in fragrant encouragement, "I think you are getting on very nicely, Mr.Kong, and one does not look for absolute conformance from a foreigner--especially one who is so extremely foreign.If I can help you with anything--of course I could not even speak as I have done to an ordinary stranger, but with one of a distantrace it seems different--if I can tell you anything that will save you--" "You are all-exalted," I replied, with seemly humility, "and virtue andwisdom press out your temples on either side.Certainly, since I have learned that the heart is so poetically regarded, I have been assailed by a fear lest other organs which I have hitherto despised might be used in a similar way.Now, as regards liver--""It is only used with bacon," replied the maiden, rising abruptly."Kidneys?" suggested this person diffidently, really anxious to detainher footsteps, although from her expression it did not rest assured that the incident was taking an actually auspicious movement.
"I don't think you need speak of those except at breakfast," she said; "but I hear the others returning, and I must really go to dress for dinner."Among the barbarians many keep books wherein to inscribe their deep and beautiful thoughts.This person had therefore provided himself with one also, and, drawing it forth, he now added to a page of many other interesting compositions: "Maidens of immaculate refinement do not hesitate to admit before a person of a different sex that they are on the point of changing their robes.The liver is in some intricate way an emblem representing bacon, or together with it the two stand for a widely differing analogy.Among those of the highest exclusiveness kidneys are never alluded to after the tenth gong-stroke of the morning."With a sincerely ingrained trust that the scenes of dignity, opulence, and wisdom, set forth in these superficial letters, are not unsettling your intellect and causing you to yearn for a fuller existence.
KONG HO.
