When Chao the watchman walked down the street with nothing dangling from his head people shouted: "There goes a revolutionary!"
Ah Q envied him. He had heard about the licentiate's knotted queue but had not thought that he could follow so illustrious an example. The watchman was, however, not beyond his emulation and he now made up his mind; with a chopstick he secured his queue on top of his head and after some hesitation went out boldly on the street.
His appearance attracted some attention but caused no comment. This neglect at first chagrined and then angered him. He had become dissatisfied and irritable of late—though his problem of living was no more difficult than before the revolution, though people were courteous to him, and though the tavernkeeper did not refuse him credit. He felt that the revolution should not be so prosaic and colorless. One day his ire was fanned to the exploding point when he encountered little Don.
For little Don's queue was also knotted on his head and secured with a bamboo chopstick. Ah Q never thought that little Don would be so brazen, and never would have permitted it if he had had his way. For what was little Don? He wished to seize the impudent pretender, break his chopstick in two, let down his queue for him, and to slap him as a punishment for forgetting his birth, for the crime of daring to become a revolutionary. But with magnanimity and restraint he let little Don off and only glared at him and spat in token of his contempt.
The fake foreigner was the only one who did dare to venture into the city. The licentiate had contemplated making a call upon His Honor the graduate for haying stored the trunks, but thought better of it in view of the danger to
