"The occasion is undoubtedly one which calls for recognition to an
unusual degree," replied Kai Lung with extreme affability. "To that
end this person will accordingly narrate the story which has been
suggested, notwithstanding the fact that it has been specially
prepared for the ears of the sublime Emperor, who is at this moment
awaiting this unseemly one's arrival in Peking with every mark of ill-
restrained impatience, tempered only by his expectation of being the
first to hear the story of the well-meaning but somewhat premature
Chan Hung.

"The Mandarin in question lived during the reign of the accomplished
Emperor Tsint-Sin, his Yamen being at Fow Hou, in the Province of
Shan-Tung, of which place he was consequently the chief official. In
his conscientious desire to administer a pure and beneficent rule, he
not infrequently made himself a very prominent object for public
disregard, especially by his attempts to introduce untried things,
when from time to time such matters arose within his mind and seemed
to promise agreeable and remunerative results. In this manner it came
about that the streets of Fow Hou were covered with large flat stones,
to the great inconvenience of those persons who had, from a very
remote period, been in the habit of passing the night on the soft clay
which at all seasons of the year afforded a pleasant and efficient
resting-place. Nevertheless, in certain matters his engaging efforts
were attended by an obvious success. Having noticed that misfortunes
and losses are much less keenly felt when they immediately follow in
the steps of an earlier evil, the benevolent and humane-minded Chan
Hung devised an ingenious method of lightening the burden of a
necessary taxation by arranging that those persons who were the most
heavily involved should be made the victims of an attack and robbery
on the night before the matter became due. By this thoughtful