INCREDIBLE OBTUSENESS
"Lay your commands," replied Hwa-mei steadfastly, "and measure not the burden of their weight."
"It is well," agreed Kai Lung. "Let Shan Tien give the feast and the time of acquiescence will have passed.… The foothold of to-morrow looms insecure, yet a very pressing message must meanwhile reach your hands."
"At the feast?"
"Thus: about the door of the inner hall are two great jars of shining brass, one on either side, and at their approach a-step. Being led, at that step I shall stumble … the message you will thereafter find in the jar from which I seek support."
"It shall be to me as your spoken word. Alas! the moment of recall is already here."
"Doubt not; we stand on the edge of an era that is immeasurable. For that emergency I now go to consult the spirits who have so far guided us."
On the following day at an evening hour Kai Lung received an imperious summons to accompany one who led him to the inner courts. Yet neither the cords about his arms nor the pillory around his neck could contain the gladness of his heart. From within came the sounds of instruments of wood and string with the measured beating of a drum; nothing had fallen short, for on that forbidden day, incredibly blind to the depths of his impiety, the ill-starred Mandarin Shan Tien was having music!
"Gall of a misprocured she-mule!" exclaimed the unsympathetic voice of the one who had charge of him, and the rope was jerked to quicken his loitering feet. In an effort to comply Kai Lung missed the step that crossed his path and stumbling blindly forward would
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