The silence was broken by a very aged man who arose from among the
bystanders.

"Behold the length of this person's pigtail," he exclaimed, "the
whiteness of his moustaches and the venerable appearance of his beard!
There is no more aged person present--if, indeed, there be such a one
in all the Province. It accordingly devolves upon him to speak in this
matter, which shall be as follows: The noble-minded and proficient Kai
Lung shall relate the story as he has proposed, and the garrulous Wang
Yu shall twice contribute to Kai Lung's bowl when it is passed round,
once for himself and once for this person, in order that he may learn
either to be more discreet or more proficient in the art of aptly
replying."

"The events which it is this person's presumptuous intention to
describe to this large-hearted and providentially indulgent
gathering," began Kai Lung, when his audience had become settled, and
the wooden bowl had passed to and fro among them, "did not occupy many
years, although they were of a nature which made them of far more
importance than all the remainder of his existence, thereby supporting
the sage discernment of the philosopher Wen-weng, who first made the
observation that man is greatly inferior to the meanest fly, inasmuch
as that creature, although granted only a day's span of life,
contrives during that period to fulfil all the allotted functions of
existence.

"Unutterably to the astonishment and dismay of this person and all
those connected with him (for several of the most expensive readers of
the future to be found in the Empire had declared that his life would
be marked by great events, his career a source of continual wonder,