figure rocked on its base, and fell in fragments at Felix's feet.
The glass reflected his startled face. He thrilled for an instant
with superstitious terror, but recollecting that his finger had
touched the fragile figure, he accounted for it as an accident,
and went to bed and to such repose as a debtor can enjoy with an
execution hanging over his head.

Masks and dominos made the street merry under his window. The
opera ball was unusually brilliant, experts said, and nothing
made the Parisians aware that on the night of January 12th, 1840,
Felix d'Aubremel had passed sentence of death on Chinaman Li, son
of Mung, son of Tseu, a literate mandarin of the 114th class.

Nine months later Felix d'Aubremel was living in furnished
lodgings in an alley off the Rue St. Pierre, and living by
borrowing. The gentlemanly sceptic owed his landlady a good deal
of money; his clothes were aged past wearing, and his tailor
had long ago broken off all relations with him. The Marquis
d'Aubremel was within a hairsbreadth of that utterly crushed
state that ends in madness, or in suicide--which is only a
variety of madness.

One morning while sitting in the glass cage that leads to the
staircase of every lodging-house, waiting to beg another respite
from his landlady, he took up a newspaper, and the following
notice was lucky enough to catch his attention.

"Chiusang, 12th January, 1840. Hostilities have broken out
between England and the Celestial Empire. The sudden and
inexplicable death of Mandarin Li, the only member of the council