at pleasure in having
you beaten."

"My words are quite true, your excellency," repeated Chang earnestly.
"What have we to gain by deceit, we who have performed our miracles
before the countless hosts of yonder Western Heaven?"

"Ha, ha! hear the braggarts!" shouted the guests. "What shall we command
them to do?"

For a moment they consulted together, whispering and laughing.

"I have it," cried the host finally. "Our feast was short of fruit,
since this is the off season. Suppose we let this fellow supply us.
Here, fellow, produce us a peach, and be quick about it. We have no time
for fooling."

"What, masters, a peach?" exclaimed the elder Chang in mock dismay.
"Surely at this season you do not expect a peach."

"Caught at his own game," laughed the guests, and the people began to
hoot derisively.

"But, father, you promised to do anything he required," urged the son.
"If he asks even a peach, how can you refuse and at the same time save
your face?"

"Hear the boy talk," mumbled the father, "and yet, perhaps he's right.
Very well, masters," turning to the crowd, "if it's a peach you want,
why, a peach you shall have, even though I must send into the garden of
the Western Heaven for the fruit."

The people became silent and the mandarin's guests forgot to laugh. The
old man, still muttering, opened the box from which he had been taking
the magic bowls, plates, and other articles. "To think of people wanting
peaches at this season! What is the world coming to?"

After fumbling in the box for some moments he drew out a skein of golden
thread, fine spun and as light as gossamer. No sooner had he unwound a
portion of this thread than a sudden gust of wind carried it up into the
air above the heads of the onlookers. Faster and faster the old man
paid out the magic coil, higher and higher the free end rose into the
heavens, until, strain his eyes as he would, no one present could see
into what far-region it had vanished.

"Wonderful, wonderful!" shouted the people with one voice, "the old man
is a fairy."

For a moment they forgot all about the mandarin, the jugglers, and the
peach, so amazed were they at beholding the flight of the magic thread.

At last the old man seemed satisfied with the distance to which his cord
had sailed, and, with a bow to the spectators, he tied the end to a
large wooden pillar which helped to support the roof of the grand stand.
For a moment the structure trembled and swayed as i