Page 25 - incense-bearers of han

CHAPTER III - HU, THE ELDER

“LOOKING FOR THE BLESSED HOPE”

Mr. Hu-Resembling-Prosperity sat amidst regal splendor in the guest-room of his
spacious establishment in the Hu family-village. He was the feudal lord of the town,

the undisputed autocrat of all he surveyed, the possessor of extensive agriculture
acreage in the surrounding country and the largest mansion in the center of the village
with numerous courts and a hundred rooms. So august was his presence that none of

the lesser lights in his family or among the rank and file of the villagers were
permitted to sit down in his presence.

He was served his meals in solitary majesty but before he sat down to his repast he
would look carefully at the appetizer in each saucer. If any dish looked to be poorly

prepared or unworthy to appear on the table of one of such importance, he would
verify his suspicious by lifting the saucer to his nose for a whiff and then would hurl
the whole with its contents through the open door and into the courtyard. With all his

irascibility and domineering qualities the Elder Hu had a real parental interest in the
welfare of his people and was fair and just in the administration of local affairs.

On the particular day of which we are speaking, as the Elder reposed in a
semi-reclining wicker chair, a servant came in bearing a letter which he reported had

been brought by special messenger from Elder Chu of the village of Yee-Hsu, forty li
distant. Mr. Chu was a life-long friend of Mr. Hu, of corresponding position in their
respective villages and a community of interest in the writings of the sages which they

would discuss to the wee hours of the morning on their periodical visits to one another.
The friendship was further cemented when Mr. Hu‟s eldest daughter was given in
marriage to the first son of Mr. Chu.

Mr. Hu received the letter with a grunt, broke the seal with deliberation, extracted a

single thin sheet, lined with vertical red lines at intervals of about half an inch, which
were entirely disregarded in the inscription of the artistic grass characters of Mr. Chu.
Real beauty and symmetry lie in that which to the unpracticed eye appears to be a

careless hen scrawl.

The missive was brief but revolutionary in its import to Elder Hu. His eyes first ran
easily over the characters until they began to blaze with wrath. The content of the
letter was something like this:
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