the middle school of my native city. My colleagues avoided me, the authorities set spies on me; I felt as if I lived in an icehouse, as if I were standing on the execution ground; and all for no other reason than that I did not have a queue!
"One day some students came to see me in my room, saying, 'Sir, we want to cut off our queues.'
"'It won't do!' I said.
"'Which is better—to have a queue or not to have a queue?'
"'It is better to be without one . . . '
"'Then why do you say that it won't do?'
"'It is not worth it. It is wiser not to cut off your queues. Better wait a little while.'
"They did not say anything to this but they left unconvinced and cut off their queues anyway. It caused a great deal of talk. But I pretended to notice nothing and allowed them to come to class along with those who had queues.
"The disease spread; on the third day six queues were cut off among the students of the Normal School and on that same afternoon the six queueless students were expelled. These six students could not stay in the school and did not dare return home; they suffered like branded criminals until a month or two after the first Double Ten.
"I myself? I also was pardoned. I was only taunted a few times when I came to Peking the winter of the first year of the Republic, but later on the very ones that taunted me had their queues cut off by the police. From then on I was no longer insulted and taunted. But I have not ventured into the more conservative countrysides."
N's face softened with an air of satisfaction for a moment, but suddenly it clouded again as he said:
"Now you visionaries are advocating bobbed hair for
