"Alas, story-teller," interposed the maiden hastily, "it would seem
that the star to which you chained /your/ wrist has not carried you
into the assembly of the gods."

"Yet already it has borne me half-way--into a company of malefactors.
Doubtless on the morrow the obliging Mandarin Shan Tien will arrange
for the journey to be complete."

"Yet have you then no further wish to continue in an ordinary
existence?" asked the maiden.

"To this person," replied Kai Lung, with a deep-seated look,
"existence can never again be ordinary. Admittedly it may be short."

As they conversed together in this inoffensive manner she whom Li-loe
had called the Golden Mouse held in her delicately-formed hands a
priceless bowl filled with ripe fruit of the rarer kinds which she had
gathered. These from time to time she threw up to the opening, rightly
deciding that one in Kai Lung's position would stand in need of
sustenance, and he no less dexterously held and retained them. When
the bowl was empty she continued for a space to regard it silently, as
though exploring the many-sided recesses of her mind.

"You have claimed to be a story-teller and have indeed made a boast
that there is no arising emergency for which you are unprepared," she
said at length. "It now befalls that you may be put to a speedy test.
Is the nature of this imagined scene"--thus she indicated the
embellishment of the bowl--"familiar to your eyes?"