How firmly they clutched their fobs, lest a _candareen_[2] might jump into the pocket of the needy scholar. But of advice they were as profuse as grass-hoppers in August.
“Go to the capital—go to Kiang-fu,” (Nankin the ancient capital of the empire,) “thou wilt perplex the learned—thou wilt bewilder the ignorant!” said one.
“_Hi!_ this fellow Lí will yet stand with honor before the emperor,” cried another.
“Appear boldly in the ‘Scientific Halls’ before the Examiners,” said a third, “and never fear but thy name shall be cried at midnight from the highest tower in the city,[3] as the successful Lí, with whom no other candidate can compete!”
“When the wind blows over the fields does not the grass bend before it!” said Hok-wan. “When the great Ho speaks will not inferiors obey! the learned academician Ho is my brother—to him then you shall go—one word from him, and even the judges themselves shall cry your name.”
“Ivory does not come from a rat’s mouth, or gold from brass clippings,” thought Lí, as he listened to these remarks—“a few candareens now would be better for me than all this fine talk—truly I must be a fool not to know all this stuff before. Yet by the sacred manes of my ancestors, I _will_ go to the capital, and that, too, ere another sun ripens the rice-fields—furnished with a letter to the illustrious Ho, I may dare admittance.”
Giddy with wine, and with the excitement of high hopes for the future, at a late hour Lí was borne in a sumptuous palankeen to the humble dwelling of Whanki.
The poor old soul at first knew not the gay gallant who stood before her, so much had the gift-robes of the mandarin changed his appearance.
“_Heigh-yah!_ but, Lí, thou art as fine as a magpie,” quoth she, raising her head from the pan of charcoal, over which she seemed to be simmering something in a small dish—“_Heigh_—and now I look at you again, I see you have drank of that cursed _sam-shu_—forever abhorred be the name of I-tih![4] with all thy wit dost thou not know the wise saying of Mencius—‘_Like a crane among hens is a man of parts among fools_.’ (It may be inferred, I think, that the good old Whanki was something of a scold.) And while thou hast been guzzling, see what I have prepared for thee—what had _I_ to do with birds-nest soup, and with shark’s fins, and with pigeon’s eggs from the table of Hok-wan! My poor Lí will be too modest to eat with the great company, I said to myself, and I will not eat them, but warm them up to comfort him when he comes back—look, here they are,” (lifting the dish from the fire) “and yet thou comest home like a well-fed, stupid swine!”