Punch: Punch (39.1860)

THE GREAT REFORMER CONFUCIUS AND THE GREATER REFORMER, MR, PUNCH,
MEET IN THE CATHEDRAL OF PEKIN.

PUNCH. Hail, most illustrious, preposterous, and antibilious philosopher ! I forget your honourable and.
distinguished Chinese name.

Confucius. My ignoble and contemptible appellation in the vulgar language of this unworthy country
is spelt Koong-foo-tsee, oh, nine times to be venerated and idolised Punch ! The intolerable Jesuits converted
it (I entreat your pardon for speaking again on so miserable a matter) into the ridiculous Latin word by which I
am ticketed in literature.

Punch. Odoriferous and beatific Koong-foo-tsee, 1 trust that your adorable wife and your unap
proachable son are well.

Confucius. Elaborated and interminable Punch, it is fitting that the microscopic details of my insignifi-
cant history should escape your lordly recollection, and that you should not accord in the golden amber of your
celestial mind a place for such undignified flies as my objectionable old woman and my unappreciable brat. Else
you might remember that I turned them both out of my abominable doors, in order that I might be undisturbed
in my philosophic meditations for the good of China.

Punch. Ah ! so you did, most philanthropic, and thereby you transcended myself, who only beat my
vvife and threw my baby out of window. But still we are brothers, and I am ecstatic at meeting you in this
place. I hope that the hymns of the West, once more chanted in the Cathedral of Pekin, have not been
offensive to you, Koong-foo-tsee.

Confucius. Nay, most considerate, I rejoice that a war which, began in smuggling ends in psalmody.
Punch. None of your scoffs, most analytic. Do you not see that it is to your own teaching that the
Chinese owe any little inconvenience or humiliation they may have sustained?

Confucius. Telescopic and retrospective Punch, may I be eviscerated if I see anything of the kind.
Punch. Thou wert monops inter ccecos, Koong-foo-tsee, but I may now remark, that there thou goest
with thine eye out.

Confucius. My object is truth, O Punch, and I would humbly request elucidation of thy proposition.
Punch. Thou didst write a heap of books, Koong-foo-tsee, and thou didst preach a heap of sermons, and
thou didst make some seventy thousand disciples, of whom seventy-two were Stunners and ten were Out-and-Outers.