opher, "it is very clear to me
that it is an allegory. What is the feather which he puts in his cap?
It is the most conspicuous feature of the military uniform, the plume,
the pompon, which marks all kinds of military dress-hats. When he
speaks of his hero as having assumed the feather, he means that he has
donned the uniform of a soldier. He has come to town, in other words,
to enlist. Then behold the transformation! He begins at once to act
irrationally. The whole epic paints in never-fading colors the
disastrous effect upon the intellect of putting on soldier-clothes. You
will pardon me, my friends, if I speak thus plainly, but I must open to
you the hidden wisdom of your own country."

Sam smiled. The idea of taking offense at any nonsense which an
ignorant pagan should say was quite beneath him.

"But that is not all. The style of the language and of the music is
most noteworthy. It is highly comical, and its object evidently is to
provoke a laugh, and at dinner this evening we saw that its object was
attained. All the other martial hymns to which we listened were grave,
ponderous compositions from which the element of humor was rigidly
excluded. It was left for the author of 'Yang Kee' to uncover the
ludicrous character of militarism--he has virtually committed your
nation to it. He was a genius of marvelous insight. He saw clearly then
what but few of your fellow citizens are even now aware of, that there
is nothing more comical than a soldier. I am convinced that he was a
Porsslanese who had the good fortune to sow in your literature the seed
of truth. You think that as a nation you have a sense of humor. I have
studied your humorous literature. You laugh at mothers-in-law and
messenger-boys and domestic servants, and many other objects which are
altogether serious and have no element of humor in them, and at the
same time you are blind to the most absurd of spectacles, the man who
dresses up in feathers and gold lace and thinks it is honorable to do
nothing for years but wait for a pretext to kill somebody," and Chung
Tu leaned back in his chair and smiled.

"It is we who have the sense of humor," he added. "When our common
people laughed at the Emperor in his uniforms, they showed the same
sound sense that appears in 'Yang Kee.' I thank you, my dear friends,
for listening to me so kindly and without anger, but I hope to preach
these ideas to your people, and as I take my t