had died! One could see that he was really a good man and that Chang-keng had lied. It is very sad indeed that Ah Shun should have believed the lies of a born thief and died for nothing. But then we cannot blame anyone, we can only blame Ah Shun's ill fate.'
"Well, that was that. And I had finished my affairs. But what was I to do with the two flowers I still had with me? Well, I asked Grandma Lao Fa to give them to Ah Chao. I really did not want to give them to her particularly since this Ah Chao ran away from me as if I were a wolf or something worse. But I gave them to her just the same. When I see my mother I shall only tell her that Ah Shun was too happy for words when she got the flowers. What do these things matter anyway? Only to drag along, drag along until after the New Year when I shall begin to teach anew my 'The Master Says' and 'The Book of Poetry Says.'"
"Is that what you teach?" I asked with astonishment.[1]
"Of course. Did you think that I was teaching the ABC's? I had only two pupils at first, one studying the Book of Poetry and the other Mencius. Recently another one was added, a girl, studying Precepts for Women. I do not even teach any arithmetic; not that I don't want to, but because their parents don't."
"I really did not think that you would be teaching such books!"
"That's what their father wants them to read. I am an outsider and it is none of my affair what they read. What do these things matter anyway? One must take things as they come."
His face was red and he seemed a little drunk. But the
- ↑ The teaching of the Confucian classics was abolished in the primary and secondary schools when the Republic was established.
