General Tang's Chicken

General Wango Tang, Commander of the People's Liberation Army's 41st Army Group had his court of yes men and lickspitles roaring with laughter as he told a series of quips and witticisms.

Members of people's delegation from Hunan province come to see Chairman Mao, they come, they talk to Mao, and then they go, heading off down the corridors of Forbidden Palace. Chairman Mao starts looking for smoking pipe. He can't find. He calls in Deng Xiaoping, the dreaded head of his secret police. "Go after delegation, and find out which one took my pipe," he say. Deng scuttles off down corridor. Five minute later Mao find pipe under pile of papers. He calls Deng—"Look, I've found my pipe." "It's too late," Deng says, "half the delegation admitted they took your pipe, and the other half died during questioning."

With that the assembled group of lackeys roared with laughter except for two people sitting to his side. One, an obviously bored Englishwoman in a red silk dress holding an extremely long cigarette holder with an unlit cigarette; the other an elaborately foppishly dressed English gentleman was too engrossed in his copy of Voltaire to notice what was happening around him.