Chinese Literature

ly with his stained fingers, as if he were afraid that it would run away unless he made it stay by force. At each whiff he took, he made a loud noise. .

Thinking, perhaps, that he had to make some polite remark to the man who had offered him the thing he was enjoying, old Mr. Chang asked how many cigarettes Mr. Li smoked per day. Then he mentioned wine.

“T heard you like to drink a few cups LOO Ss en enews

“Ves,” Mr. Li hastened to answer. “Only I can’t find a drinking companion.” He looked at the other with an expression of expectancy.

“T]] invite you to my house some day for a drink.”

Mr. Li suggested that they go toa restaurant that evening. Old Mr. Chang said, very frankly:

“Unfortunately, I haven’t any money on me today. ... Id like to invite you to my place, but my family hasn’t been told to prepare anything... .”

So they went to a Tientsin restaurant and Mr. Li paid for the wine and food. Friends who drink wine together do not have to stand on ceremonies.

Thus they became boon companions and thereafter frequented small restaurants together. Old Mr. Chang always happened to have no money on him, and never invited Mr. Li to his house for a drink. - The first time Mr. Li went there was to return the copy of stone-rubbings. They talked from five o’clock in the afternoon until seven-thirty. The women in Mr. Chang’s family were whispering uneasily in the next room, sometimes peeping in through the door and window. In the end, the visitor asked the host to go out with him. When they arrived at the restaurant, old Mr. Chang pretended he had to go back because he had forgotten to bring his wallet. “Oh, how stupid of me!” The old man reproached himself as he limped into the restaurant. “T really should be the host this time!”

But his drinking capacity was not impaired. He gulped down one cup after another without batting an eyelid. And all the time he smoked the cigarettes from Mr. Li’s case on the table. When the case was empty, it was old Mr. Chang who ordered the waiter to go out and buy some more. His words were still coherent and clear, and the more he drank, the more slowly he spoke. Only his nose turned purple.

And with such a man Mr. Li had become friends! Old Pan was really surprised.

, “How did this happen? Do you find old Mr. Chang congenial to talk to?”

“Just so so,” said Mr. Li, looking at his friend’s longish face with some annoyance because he thought Old Pan was using his authority as school principal to interfere in other people’s private affairs.

Mr. Li therefore explained his attitude with great self-confidence: ‘Tt doesn’t matter if friends have different views. Life is richer when people are unlike one another, If you had many, many friends and all

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