absence of any rare and auspicious insect, but by the presence of vast hordes of locusts, which had overwhelmed and devoured the entire face the country.  It so chanced that among the recently constructed devices at ‘The Pure Gilt Dragon of Exceptional Symmetry’ were a number of elegant representations of rice fields and fruit gardens so skilfully fashioned that they deceived even the creatures, and attracted, among other living things, all the locusts in Hankow into that place of commerce.  It was a number of these insects that King-y-Yang vindictively placed in the box which he instructed Sen to carry to Yun, well knowing that the reception which would be accorded to anyone who appeared there on such a mission would be of so fatally destructive a kind that the consideration of his return need not engage a single conjecture.

“Entirely tranquil in intellect—­for the possibility of King-y-Yang’s intention being in any way other than what he had represented it to be did not arise within Sen’s ingenuous mind—­the person in question cheerfully set forth on his long but unavoidable march towards the region of Yun.  As he journeyed along the way, the nature of his meditation brought up before him the events which had taken place since his arrival at Hankow; and, for the first time, it was brought within his understanding that the story of the youth and the three tigers, which his father had related to him, was in the likeness of a proverb, by which counsel and warning is conveyed in a graceful and inoffensive manner.  Readily applying the fable to his own condition, he could not doubt but that the first two animals to be overthrown were represented by the two undertakings which he had already conscientiously performed in the matter of the mechanical ducks and the inlaid boxes, and the conviction that he was even then engaged on the third and last trial filled him with an intelligent gladness so unobtrusive and refined that he could express his entrancing emotions in no other way that by lifting up his voice and uttering the far-reaching cries which he had used on the first of the occasions just referred to.

“In this manner the first part of the journey passed away with engaging celerity.  Anxious as Sen undoubtedly was to complete the third task, and approach the details which, in his own case, would correspond with the command of the bowmen and the marriage with the Mandarin’s daughter of the person in the story, the noontide heat compelled him to rest in the shade by the wayside for a lengthy period each day.  During one of these pauses it occurred to his versatile mind that the time which was otherwise uselessly expended might be well disposed of in endeavouring to increase the value and condition of the creatures under his care by instructing them in the performance of some simple accomplishments, such as might not be too laborious for their feeble and immature understanding.  In this he was more successful than he had imagined