" And scholar
number two had to ransack his brains to remember where the saying
was found, or else confess himself beaten. Mackay thought it
might be a good habit for the graduates of his own alma mater
across the wide sea to adopt. He wondered what some of his old
college chums would think, if, when he got back to Canada, he
should buttonhole one on the street some day, recite a quotation
from Shakespeare or Macaulay, and demand from his friend where it
could be found. He had a suspicion that the old friend would be
afraid that the Oriental sun had touched George Mackay's brain.
Nevertheless he thought the custom one he could turn to good
account, and before long he was trying it himself. He had such a
wonderful memory that he never forgot anything he had once read.
So the scholars of north Formosa soon discovered, again to their
humiliation, that this Kai Bok-su of Tamsui could beat them at
their own game. They did not care how much he might profess to
know of writers and lands beyond China. Such were only barbarians
anyway. But when, right before a crowd, he would display a surer
knowledge of the Chinese classics than they themselves, they
began not only to respect but to fear him.
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