scolds, the sooner will your feathers
drop out."

Now, of course, some readers will laugh and say, "But this was only
a silly dream, and meant nothing." Mr. Wang, however, did not think
in this way. He woke up very happy. He would go to Mr. Lin, confess
everything and take the scolding. Then he would be free of his feathers
and would go to work. Truly he had led a lazy life. What the good Fairy
Old Boy had said about his father and mother had hurt him very badly,
for he knew that every word was true. From this day on, he would not be
lazy; he would take a wife and become the father of a family.

Miser Wang meant all right when he started out from his shanty. From his
little hoard of money he took enough cash to pay Mr. Lin for the stolen
duck. He would do everything the fairy had told him and even more. But
this doing more was just where he got into trouble. As he walked along
the road jingling the string of cash, and thinking that he must soon
give it up to his neighbour, he grew very sad. He loved every copper of
his money and he disliked to part with it. After all, Old Boy had not
told him he must confess to the owner of the duck; he had said he must
go to Lin and get Lin to give a good scolding. "Old Boy did not say that
Lin must scold _me_," thought the miser. "All that I need do is to get
him to _scold_, and then my feathers will drop off and I shall be happy.
Why not tell him that old Sen stole his duck, and get him to give Sen a
scolding? That will surely do just as well, and I shall save my money as
well as my face. Besides, if I tell Lin that I am a thief, perhaps he
will send for a policeman and they will haul me off to prison. Surely
going to jail would be as bad as wearing feathers. Ha, ha! This will be
a good joke on Sen, Lin, and the whole lot of them. I shall fool Fairy
Old Boy too. Really he had no right to speak of my father and mother in
the way he did. After all, they died of fever, and I was no doctor to
cure them. How could he say it was my fault?"

The longer Wang talked to himself, the surer he became that it was
useless to tell Lin that he had stolen the duck. By the time he had
reached the duck man's house he had fully made up his mind to deceive
him. Mr. Lin invited him to come in and sit down. He was a plain-spoken,
honest kind of man, this Lin. Everybody liked him, for he never spoke
ill of any man and he always had something good to say of his
neighbours.

"Well, what's your business, f