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Updated: June 25, 2025
I'll, in fact, contribute some on your ladyship's account, and when I get the banquet ready and invite you, venerable ancestor, to come and partake of it, I'll also wrap fifty taels in a piece of paper, and dutifully present them to you, as a penalty for my officious interference in matters that don't concern me. Will this be all right or not?"
But as they're now as ever obtained with cash down, a couple of taels could very well be given to the brothers or sons of some of the other people's nurses to purchase them with. They'll then be good for something! Were we however to employ any of the public domestics in the establishment, the things will be just as bad as ever. I wonder how they do manage to get such utter rot as they do?"
In the end, instead of a story, it had assumed the proportions of an important and many-volumed book; while Tiao had in the meantime accepted the wedding gifts of an objectionable and excessively round-bodied individual, who had amassed an inconceivable number of taels by inducing persons to take part in what at first sight appeared to be an ingenious but very easy competition connected with the order in which certain horses should arrive at a given and clearly defined spot.
'Moreover, the matter is one which touches his own welfare closely, and, expressed in the fashion which the proficient Mandarin has commanded, may be set forth as follows: By a wise and all-knowing divine system, it is arranged that certain honourable occupations, which by their nature cannot become remunerative to any marked degree, shall be singled out for special marks of reverence, so that those who engage therein may be compensated in dignity for what they must inevitably lack in taels.
Loafing in the streets and doorways are tall, well-built men and women, but they had a rather down-at-heel air, for their fortunes were at a low ebb when I was in Chengtu. The military service they once rendered had been displaced by the new modern trained troops, and three years ago their monthly rice pension of four taels, about $2.50, was cut down by a viceroy bidding for popular support.
"Should you be so ill-destined as to compete, and, as would certainly be the case, be awarded a position of contempt, how unendurable would be your anguish when, amidst the execrations of the deluded mob, you remembered that thirty taels of the purest had slipped from your effete grasp." "Should the Bridge of the Camel Back be passable, five and forty might suffice," mused Lao Tung to himself.
By this thoughtful expedient the unpleasant duty of parting from so many taels was almost imperceptibly led up to, and when, after the lapse of some slight period, the first sums of money were secretly returned, with a written proverb appropriate to the occasion, the public rejoicing of those who, had the matter been left to its natural course, would still have been filling the air with bitter and unendurable lamentations, plainly testified to the inspired wisdom of the enlightened Mandarin.
After the subject had been thoroughly discussed in all its bearings a convention was signed in London, on July 19, 1885, by which the lekin was fixed at eighty taels a chest, in addition to the customs due of thirty taels, and also that the whole of this sum should be paid in the treaty port before the opium was taken out of bond.
Jensen and I were sitting, who from his appearance seemed to be worth perhaps a five-dollar bill, and after a preliminary interchange of compliments, I have seen his hand disappear up his long sleeve and produce a package of gold leaf worth perhaps 2000 taels of silver.
When, however, he got the prescription, he had to search for another two or three years and to spend over and above a thousand taels before he succeeded in having it prepared. If you don't believe me, mother, you are at liberty to ask cousin Pao-ch'ai about it." At the mention of her name, Pao-ch'ai laughingly waved her hand. "I know nothing about it," she observed.
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