THE NIGHTINGALE. 299

cult. And the playmaster praised the bird particularly; yes, he
declared that it was better than a nightingale, not only with re-
gard to its plumage and the many beautiful diamonds, but inside
as well,

“ For you see,ladies and gentlemen, and aboveall, your Imperial
Majesty, with a real nightingale one can never calculate what is
coming, but in this artificial bird everything is settled. One can
explain it; one can open it and make people understand where
the waltzes come from, how they go, and how one follows vp
another.”

“Those are quite our own ideas,” they all said.

And the speaker received permission to show the bird to the
people on the next Sunday. The people were to hear it sing too,
the Emperor commanded ; and they did hear it, and were as much
pleased as if they had all got tipsy upon tea, for that’s quite the
Chinese fashion, and they all said, “Oh!” and held up their fore-
fingers and nodded. But the poor fisherman, who had heard the
real Nightingale, said,

“Tt sounds pretty enough, and the melodies resemble each
other, but there’s something wanting, though I know not what!”

The real Nightingale was banished from the country and
empire. The artificial bird had its place on a silken cushion
close to the Emperor’s bed; all the presents it had received,
gold and precious stones, were ranged about it; in title it had
advanced to be the High Imperial After-Dinner-Singer, and in
rank to Number One on the left hand; for the Emperor con-
sidered that side the most important on which the heart is placed,
and even’in an Emperor the heart is on the left side; and the
playmaster wrote a work of five and twenty volumes about the
artificial bird: it was very learned and very long, full of the most
difficult Chinese words; but yet all the people declared that they
had read it and understood it, for fear of being considered stupid,
and having their bodies trampled on.

So a whole year went by. The Emperor, the Court, and all
the other Chinese knew every little twitter in the artificial bird’s
song by heart. But just for that reason it pleased them best—
they could sing with it themselves, and they did so. The street

boys sang, “ Tsi-tsi-tsi-glug-glug !” and the Emperor himself sang
it too. Yes, that was certainly famous.

But one evening, when the artificial bird was singing its best,
and the Emperor lay in bed listening to it, something inside the
bird said, “ Whizz!” Something cracked. “ Whit-r-r!”. All the
wheels ran round, and then the music stopped.

The Emperor immediately sprang out of bed, and caused his
body physician to be called; but what could Ze do? Then they
sent for a watchmaker, and after a good deal of talking and in-
vestigation, the bird was put into something like order, but the
watchmaker said that the bird must be carefully treated, for the