To begin with, we had chicken soup and plovers' eggs, then swallows'
nests cut in threads, stewed spawn of crab, sparrow gizzards, roast
pig's feet and sauce, mutton marrow, fried sea slug, shark's fin--very
gelatinous; finally bamboo shoots in syrup, and water lily roots in
sugar, all the most out-of-the-way dishes, watered by Chao Hing wine,
served warm in metal tea urns.
The feast is very jolly and--what shall I say?--very confidential,
except that the husband takes no notice of the wife, and reciprocally.
What an indefatigable humorist is our actor? What a continuous stream
of wheezes, unintelligible for the most part, of antediluvian puns, of
pure nonsense at which he laughs so heartily that it is difficult not
to laugh with him. He wanted to learn a few words of Chinese, and
Pan-Chao having told him that "tching-tching" means thanks, he has been
tching-tchinging at every opportunity, with burlesque intonation.
Then we have French songs, Russian songs, Chinese songs--among others
the "Shiang-Touo-Tching," the _Chanson de la Reverie_, in which our
young Celestial repeats that the flowers of the peach tree are of
finest fragrance at the third moon, and those of the red pomegranate at
the fifth.
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