THE PESTLE AND MORTAR OF JADE
Once upon a time, so very long ago that even the great-grandfathers of our great-grandmothers had not been born, there lived in the city of Kwen-lu a little Chinese boy named Pei-Hang.
His father and mother loved him dearly, and did all they could to shield him from the power of the evil Genii, or spirits, of whom there were a great many in China. Of course, there were some good Genii too, but most of them were very much the opposite, and Pei-Hang's mother took every precaution against them.
It is well-known that a wicked Genii will not come near a Chinese boy if he has some red silk braided in with his pigtail, or if he wears a silver chain around his neck, and all of them dread an old fishing-net. So Pei-Hang's mother made him a little shirt out of an old fishing-net, and she took
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