heir gaze and their manner denoting a fixed intention
to be prepared for any emergency. Not being desirous that this should
tend towards their abrupt departure, Kai Lung rose guardedly to his
feet, with many gestures of polite reassurance, and having bowed
several times to indicate his pacific nature, he stood in an attitude
of deferential admiration. At this display the elder and less
attractive of the maidens fled, uttering loud and continuous cries of
apprehension in order to conceal the direction of her flight. The
other remained, however, and even moved a few steps nearer to Kai
Lung, as though encouraged by his appearance, so that he was able to
regard her varying details more appreciably. As she advanced she
plucked a red blossom from a thorny bush, and from time to time she
shortened the broken stalk between her jade teeth.

"Courteous loiterer," she said, in a very pearl-like voice, when they
had thus regarded one another for a few beats of time, "what is your
honourable name, and who are you who tarry here, journeying neither to
the east nor to the west?"

"The answer is necessarily commonplace and unworthy of your polite
interest," was the diffident reply. "My unbecoming name is Kai, to
which has been added that of Lung. By profession I am an incapable
relater of imagined tales, and to this end I spread my mat wherever my
uplifted voice can entice together a company to listen. Should my
feeble efforts be deemed worthy of reward, those who stand around may
perchance contribute to my scanty store, but sometimes this is judged
superfluous. For this cause I now turn my expectant feet from Loo-chow
towards the untried city of Yu-ping, but the undiminished li
stretching relentlessly before me, I sought beneath these trees a
refuge from the noontide sun."

"The occupation is a dignified one, being to no great degree removed
from that of the Sages who compiled The Books," remarked the maiden,
with an encouraging smile. "Are there many stories known to your
retentive mind?"

"In one form or another, all that exist are within my mental grasp,"
admitted Kai Lung modestly. "Thus equipped, there is no arising
emergency for which I am unprepared."

"There are other things that I would learn of your craft. What kind of
story is the most favourably received, and the one whereby your
collecting bowl is the least ignored?"

"That depends on the nature and condition of those who stand around,
and therein lies much that