Chapter LXVIII. — Difference in Punctuations.
(不打官司)
Once there was an On-whai man who was always engaged in law-suits, which he detested. At the end of the year, on the 30th of the 12th Moon, the father and two sons held a consultation together and said: " To-morrow is the first day of the New Year; each one of us should repeat some lucky sentence, hoping that the coming year will be accompanied with good luck and we will not be engaged in law-suits; is that not well?" The eldest son said: "Let father repeat the first sentence." The father said: "This is a good year" (今年好). The son followed saying: "I hope there will be fewer afflictions" (晦氣少). The second son said: "Not to engage in law-suits this year" (不得打官司)- These form three sentences of eleven characters. They wrote them on a strip of paper, which was pasted in their guest room, so that people might repeat them to insure prosperity. Early in the morning his son-in-law happened to come to make a New Year call; he saw the strip of paper and divided the writing on the wall into two sentences, the first containing five characters and the second six characters, and read them thus: "There will be more afflictions this year, and law-suits are inevitable" (今年好晦氣, 少不得打官司).
Chapter LXIX. — How to Save a Father.
割股.
There was a man whose father was very ill. He called in a doctor to attend to his illness. The doctor said: "Although there is no means of curing his sickness, I will write a prescription and see how it will affect him. If you are filial and cut a piece of flesh from your leg to boil with the medicine, it may move the pity of heaven and earth; then the
