purpose he concealed the real condition of his sentiments towards Sen,
and warmly expressed himself in terms of delicate flattery regarding
that one's sumptuous and unfailing taste in the matter of the blending
of the colours. Without doubt, he continued, such an alteration as the
one proposed would greatly increase the attractiveness of the inlaid
boxes, and the matter should be engaged upon without delay. In the
meantime, however, not to waste the immediate services of so
discriminating and persevering a servant, he would entrust Sen with a
mission of exceptional importance, which would certainly tend greatly
to his remunerative benefit. In the district of Yun, in the north-
western part of the Province, said the crafty and treacherous King-y-
Yang, a particular kind of insect was greatly esteemed on account of
the beneficent influence which it exercised over the rice plants,
causing them to mature earlier, and to attain a greater size than ever
happened in its absence. In recent years this creature had rarely been
seen in the neighbourhood of Yun, and, in consequence, the earth-
tillers throughout that country had been brought into a most
disconcerting state of poverty, and would, inevitably, be prepared to
exchange whatever they still possessed for even a few of the insects,
in order that they might liberate them to increase, and so entirely
reverse the objectionable state of things. Speaking in this manner,
King-y-Yang entrusted to Sen a carefully prepared box containing a
score of the insects, obtained at a great cost from a country beyond
the Bitter Water, and after giving him further directions concerning
the journey, and enjoining the utmost secrecy about the valuable
contents of the box, he sent him forth.

"The discreet and sagacious will already have understood the nature of
King-y-Yang's intolerable artifice; but, for the benefit of the
amiable and unsuspecting, it is necessary to make it clear that the