ubjection will necessitate your whole-hearted
co-operation in the act, there is no reason why the flower of literary
excellence should wither for lack of mutual husbandry," remarked the
broad-minded official tolerantly.

"Your enlightened patronage is a continual nourishment to the soil of
my imagination," replied the story teller.

"As regards the doings of Chang Tao and of the various other
personages who unite with him to form the fabric of the narrative,
would not a strict adherence to the fable in its classical simplicity
require the filling in of certain details which under your elusive
tongue seemed, as you proceeded, to melt imperceptibly into a discreet
background?"

"Your voice is just," confessed Kai Lung, "and your harmonious ear
corrects the deficiencies of my afflicted style. Admittedly in the
story of Chang Tao there are here and there analogies which may be
fittingly left to the imagination as the occasion should demand. Is it
not rightly said: 'Discretion is the handmaiden of Truth'? and in that
spacious and well-appointed palace there is every kind of vessel, but
the meaner are not to be seen in the more ceremonial halls. Thus he
who tells a story prudently suits his furnishing to the condition of
his hearers."

"Wisdom directs your course," replied Shan Tien, "and propriety sits
beneath your supple tongue. As the necessity for this very seemly
expurgation is now over, I would myself listen to your recital of the
fullest and most detailed version--purely, let it be freely stated, in
order to judge whether its literary qualities transcend those of the
other."

"I comply, benevolence," replied Kai Lung. "This rendering shall be to
the one that has gone before as a spreading banyan-tree overshadowing
an immature shrub."

"Forbear!" exclaimed a discordant voice, and the sour-eyed Ming-shu
revealed his inopportune presence from behind a hanging veil. "Is it
meet, O eminence, that in this person's absence you should thus
consort on terms of fraternity with tomb-riflers and grain-thieves?"

"The reproach is easily removed," replied Shan Tien hospitably. "Join
the circle of our refined felicity and hear at full length by what
means the ingenious Chang Tao--"

"There are moments when one despairs before the spectacle of authority
thus displayed," murmured Ming-shu, his throat thickening with
acrimony. "Understand, pre-eminence," he continued more aloud, "that
not this one's absence but your own prese