[260] Alluding to a well-known expression which occurs in the _Historical Record_, and is often used in the sense of deriving advantage from connection with some influential person.
[261] Without any regard to precedence, which plays quite as important a part at a Chinese as at a western dinner-party. In China, however, the most honoured guest sits at (what may be called) the head of the table, the host at the foot. I say "what may be called," as Chinese dining-tables are almost invariably square, and position alone determines which is the head and which the foot. They are usually made to accommodate eight persons; hence the fancy name "eight-angel table," in allusion to the eight famous angels, or Immortals, of the Taoist religion. (See No. V., note 48.) Occasionally, round tables are used; especially in cases where the party consists of some such number as ten.
[262] It is almost impossible to give in translation the true spirit of a Chinese antithetical couplet. There are so many points to be brought out, each word of the second line being in opposition both in tone and sense to a corresponding word in the first, that anything beyond a rough rendering of the idea conveyed would be superfluous in a work like this. Suffice it to say that Miao has here successfully capped the verse given; and the more so because he has introduced, through the medium of "sword" and "shattered vase," an allusion to a classical story in which a certain Wang Tun, when drunk with wine, beat time on a vase with his sword, and smashed the lip.
[263] This is the _vel ego vel Cluvienus_ style of satire, his own verse having been particularly good.
[264] Many candidates, successful or otherwise, have their verses and essays printed, and circulate them among an admiring circle of friends.
[265] Accurately described in Tylor's _Primitive Culture_, Vol. I., p. 75:--"Each player throws out a hand, and the sum of all the fingers shown has to be called, the successful caller scoring a point; practically each calls the total before he sees his adversary's hand." The insertion of the word "simultaneously" after "called" would improve this description. This game is so noisy that the Hong-kong authorities have forbidden it, except within certain authorised limits, between the hours of 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.--Ordinance No. 2 of 1872.