When Ling was communicating ...

When Ling was communicating to any person the signs by which messengers might find him, he was compelled to add, "the neighbourhood in which this contemptible person resides is that officially known as 'the mean quarter favoured by the lower class of those who murder by treachery'," and for this reason he was not always treated with the regard to which his attainments entitled him, or which he would have unquestionably received had he been able to describe himself as of "the partly-drained and uninfected area reserved to Mandarins and their friends.
 Ernest Bramah

Quotes from the same author

There are those who collect the refuse of the public streets, but in order to be received into the band it is necessary to have been born one of the Hereditary Confederacy of Superfluity Removers and Abandoned Oddment Gatherers.
 Ernest Bramah
The wise duck keeps his mouth shut when he smells frogs.
 Ernest Bramah
At the mention of the name and offence of this degraded being a great sound went up from the entire multitude - a universal cry of execration, not greatly dissimilar from that which may be frequently heard in the crowded Temple of Impartiality when the one whose duty it is to take up, at a venture, the folded papers, announces that the sublime Emperor, or some mandarin of exalted rank, has been so fortunate as to hold the winning number in the Annual State Lottery.
 Ernest Bramah
Do not adjust your sandals while passing through a melon-field, nor yet arrange your hat beneath an orange-tree.
 Ernest Bramah
There are few situations in life that cannot be resolved promptly, and to the satisfaction of all concerned, by either suicide, a bag of gold, or thrusting a despised antagonist over a precipice on a dark night
 Ernest Bramah