"I wasn't saying anything," Tai-yu replied.

"What a lie you're trying to ram down my throat!" laughed Pao-yu. "I heard all."

But in the middle of their colloquy, they saw Tzu Chuan enter. Pao-yu then put on a smiling face. "Tzu Chuan!" he cried, "pour me a cup of your good tea!"

"Where's the good tea to be had?" Tzu Chuan answered. "If you want good tea, you'd better wait till Hsi Jen comes."

"Don't heed him!" interposed Tai-yu. "Just go first and draw me some water."

"He's a visitor," remonstrated Tzu Chuan, "and, of course, I should first pour him a cup of tea, and then go and draw the water."

With this answer, she started to serve the tea.

"My dear girl," Pao-yu exclaimed laughingly, "If I could only share the same bridal curtain with your lovable young mistress, would I ever be able (to treat you as a servant) by making you fold the covers and make the beds."

Lin Tai-yu at once drooped her head. "What are you saying?" she remonstrated.

"What, did I say anything?" smiled Pao-yu.

Tai-yu burst into tears. "You've recently," she observed, "got into a new way. Whatever slang you happen to hear outside you come and tell me.

And whenever you read any improper book, you poke your fun at me. What!

have I become a laughing-stock for gentlemen!"

As she began to cry, she jumped down from bed, and promptly left the room. Pao-yu was at a loss how to act. So agitated was he that he hastily ran up to her, "My dear cousin," he pleaded, "I do deserve death; but don't go and tell any one! If again I venture to utter such kind of language, may blisters grow on my mouth and may my tongue waste away!"

But while appealing to her feelings, he saw Hsi Jen approach him. "Go back at once," she cried, "and put on your clothes as master wants to see you."

At the very mention of his father, Pao-yu felt suddenly as if struck by lightning. Regardless of everything and anything, he rushed, as fast as possible, back to his room, and changing his clothes, he came out into the garden. Here he discovered Pei Ming, standing at the second gateway, waiting for him.

"Do you perchance know what he wants me for?" Pao-yu inquired.

"Master, hurry out at once!" Pei Ming replied. "You must, of course, go and see him. When you get there, you are sure to find out what it's all about."

This said, he urged Pao-yu on, and together they turned past the large pavilion. Pao-yu was, however, still labouring under suspicion, when he heard, from the corner of the wall, a loud outburst of laughter. Upon turning his head round, he caught sight of Hsueh P'an jump out, clapping his hands. "Hadn't I said that my uncle wanted you?" he laughed. "Would you ever have rushed out with such alacrity?"

Pei Ming also laughed, and fell on his knees. But Pao-yu remained for a long time under the spell of utter astonishment, before he, at length, realised that it was Hsueh P'au who had inveigled him to come out.

Hsueh P'an hastily made a salutation and a curtsey, and confessed his fault. He next gave way to entreaties, saying: "Don't punish the young servant, for it is simply I who begged him go."

Pao-yu too had then no other alternative but to smile. "I don't mind your playing your larks on me; but why," he inquired, "did you mention my father? Were I to go and tell my aunt, your mother, to see to the rights and the wrongs of the case, how would you like it?"

"My dear cousin," remarked Hsueh P'an vehemently, "the primary idea I had in view was to ask you to come out a moment sooner and I forgot to respectfully shun the expression. But by and bye, when you wish to chaff me, just you likewise allude to my father, and we'll thus be square."

"Ai-ya!" exclaimed Pao-yu. "You do more than ever deserve death!!" Then turning again towards Pei Ming, "You ruffian!" he said, "what are you still kneeling for?"

Pei Ming began to b.u.mp his head on the ground with vehemence.

"Had it been for anything else," Hsueh P'an chimed in, "I wouldn't have made bold to disturb you; but it's simply in connection with my birthday which is to-morrow, the third day of the fifth moon. Ch'eng Jih-hsing, who is in that curio shop of ours, unexpectedly brought along, goodness knows where he fished them from, fresh lotus so thick and so long, so mealy and so crisp; melons of this size; and a Siamese porpoise, that long and that big, smoked with cedar, such as is sent as tribute from the kingdom of Siam. Are not these four presents, pray, rare delicacies?

The porpoise is not only expensive, but difficult to get, and that kind of lotus and melon must have cost him no end of trouble to grow! I lost no time in presenting some to my mother, and at once sent some to your old grandmother, and my aunt. But a good many of them still remain now; and were I to eat them all alone, it would, I fear, be more than I deserve; so I concluded, after thinking right and left, that there was, besides myself, only you good enough to partake of some. That is why I specially invite you to taste them. But, as luck would have it, a young singing-boy has also come, so what do you say to you and I having a jolly day of it?"

As they talked, they walked; and, as they walked, they reached the interior of the library. Here they discovered a whole a.s.semblage consisting of Tan Kuang, Ch'eng Jih-hsing, Hu Ch'i-lai, Tan T'ing-jen and others, and the singing-boy as well. As soon as these saw Pao-yu walk in, some paid their respects to him; others inquired how he was; and after the interchange of salutations, tea was drunk. Hsueh P'an then gave orders to serve the wine. Scarcely were the words out of his mouth than the servant-lads bustled and fussed for a long while laying the table. When at last the necessary arrangements had been completed, the company took their seats.

Pao-yu verily found the melons and lotus of an exceptional description.

"My birthday presents have not as yet been sent round," he felt impelled to say, a smile on his lips, "and here I come, ahead of them, to trespa.s.s on your hospitality."

"Just so!" retorted Hsueh P'an, "but when you come to-morrow to congratulate me we'll consider what novel kind of present you can give me."

"I've got nothing that I can give you," rejoined Pao-yu. "As far as money, clothes, eatables and other such articles go, they are not really mine: all I can call my own are such pages of characters that I may write, or pictures that I may draw."

"Your reference to pictures," added Hsueh P'an smiling, "reminds me of a 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-yu 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 Hsueh. P'an: "Did you see correctly that it read Keng Huang?"

"How could I not have seen correctly?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Hsueh P'an.

Pao-yu 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!"

Hsueh P'an felt utterly abashed. "Who could have said," he smiled, "whether they were T'ang Yin or Kuo Yin, (candied silver or fruit silver)."

As he cracked this joke, however, a young page came and announced that Mr. Feng had arrived. Pao-yu concluded that the new comer must be Feng Tzu-ying, the son of Feng T'ang, general with the prefix of Shen Wu."

"Ask him in at once," Hsueh P'an and his companions shouted with one voice.

But barely were these words out of their mouths, than they realised that Feng Tzu-ying had already stepped in, talking and laughing as he approached.

The company speedily rose from table and offered him a seat.

"That's right!" smiled Feng Tzu-ying. "You don't go out of doors, but remain at home and go in for high fun!"

Both Pao-yu and Hsueh P'an put on a smile. "We haven't," they remarked, "seen you for ever so long. Is your venerable father strong and hale?"

"My father," rejoined Tzu-ying, "is, thanks to you, strong and hale; but my mother recently contracted a sudden chill and has been unwell for a couple of days."

Hsueh P'an discerned on his face a slight bluish wound. "With whom have you again been boxing," he laughingly inquired, "that you've hung up this sign board?"

"Since the occasion," laughed Feng Tzu-ying, "on which I wounded lieutenant-colonel Ch'ou's son, I've borne the lesson in mind, and never lost my temper. So how is it you say that I've again been boxing? This thing on my face was caused, when I was out shooting the other day on the T'ieh w.a.n.g hills, by a flap from the wing of the falcon."

"When was that?" asked Pao-yu.

"I started," explained Tzu-ying, "on the 28th of the third moon and came back only the day before yesterday."