"They say that in your part of the world we old grandfathers are worshipped," he said, after recounting to my ears all the most intimate details of his existence from his youth upwards; "now, might that be right?""Truly," I replied."It is the unchanging foundation of our system of morality.""Ay, ay," he admitted pleasantly."We are a long way behind them foreigners in everything.At the rate we're going there won't be any trade nor work nor religion left in this country in another twenty years.I often wish I had gone abroad when I was younger.And if I had chanced upon your parts I should be worshipped, eh?" and at the agreeable thought the aged man laughed in his throat with simple humour.
"Assuredly," I replied; "--after you were dead.""Eh?" exclaimed the venerable person, checking the fountain of his mirth abruptly at the word."Dead! not before? Doesn't--doesn't that seem a bit of a waste?""Such has been the observance from the time of unrecorded antiquity," I replied."'Obey parents, respect the old, loyally uphold the sovereign, and worship ancestors.'""Well, well," remarked the one beside me, "obedience and respect-- that's something nowadays.And you make them do it?""Our laws are unflinching in their application," I said."No crime is held to be more detestable than disrespect of those to whom we owe our existence.""Quite right," he agreed, "it's a pleasure to hear it.It must be a great country, yours; a country with a future, I should say.Now, about thatyoungest lad of my son Henry's--the one that drops pet lizards down my neck, and threatened to put rat poison into his mother's tea when she wouldn't take him to the Military Turneyment; what would they do to him by your laws?""If the assertion were well sustained by competent witnesses," I replied, "it would probably be judged so execrable an offence, that a new punishment would have to be contrived.Failing that, he would certainly be wrapped round from head to foot in red-hot chains, and thus exposed to public derision.""Ah, red-hot chains!" said the aged person, as though the words formed a pleasurable taste upon his palate."The young beggar! Well, he'd deserve it.""Furthermore," I continued, gratified at having found one who so intelligently appreciated the deficiencies of his own country and the unblemished perfection of ours, "his parents and immediate descendants, if any should exist, would be submitted to a fate as inevitable but slightly less contemptuous--slow compression, perchance; his parents once removed (thus enclosing your venerable personality), and remoter offsprings would be merely put to the sword without further ignominy, and those of less kinship to about the fourth degree would doubtless escape with branding and a reprimand.""Lordelpus!" exclaimed the patriarchal one, hastily leaping to the extreme limit of the wooden couch, and grasping his staff into a significant attitude of defence; "what's that for?""Our system of justice is all-embracing," I explained."It is reasonably held that in such a case either that there is an inherent strain of criminality which must be eradicated at all hazard, or else that those who are responsible for the virtuous instruction of the young have been grossly neglectful of their duty.Whichever is the true cause, by this unfailing method we reach the desired end, for, as our proverb aptly says, 'Do the wise pluck the weed and leave the roots to spread?'""It's butchery, nothing short of Smithfield," said the ancient person definitely, rising and moving to a more remote distance as he spoke the words, yet never for a moment relaxing the aggressive angle at which hethrust out his staff before him."You're a bloodthirsty race in my opinion, and when they get this door open in China that there's so much talk about, out you go through it, my lad, or old England will know why." With this narrow-minded imprecation on his lips he left me, not even permitting me to continue expounding what would be the most likely sentences meted out to the witnesses in the case, the dwellers of the same street, and the members of the household with whom the youth in question had contemplated forming an alliance.
