Originally published in October 1920 in the Lamp of Learning supplement to the New Journal of Current Affairs (時事新報。學燈), it was later included in his first collection of short stories, A Call to Arms (吶喊).

In his later story "Storm in a Teacup", a boatman arrives in a Republican village and finds his queue chopped off by revolutionaries, which causes him anxiety when he hears of the abortive Manchu Restoration.

Mr N (先生N), an older acquaintance based on Lu Xun's superior Xia Huiqing at the Ministry of Education, angrily dismisses the importance of the day, which he says is only remembered because the police remind people to put up the flag.

N reflects on the subservient position of China, mentioning that he once read an interview with a Japanese traveller who said that he had no need to speak Chinese or Malay when in those countries because he could make himself understood by beating the natives with his cane.

He concludes the story by posing a question to idealists like the narrator, quoting the Russian writer Mikhail Artzybashev (who was popular in China at the time): "You promise a golden age to these people's sons and grandsons, but what do you have to offer them here and now?"