heard the real
Nightingale, said:--

"It sounds pretty enough, and it's a little like, but there's something
wanting, though I know not what!"

The real Nightingale was exiled from the land and empire.

The toy 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 come to be High Imperial
After-Dinner-Singer, and in rank it was Number One on the left hand; for
the Emperor reckoned 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
Play-master wrote a work of five-and-twenty volumes about the toy bird:
it was so learned and so long, full of the most difficult Chinese words,
that all the people said they had read it and understood it, or else
they would have been thought stupid, and would have had 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 toy 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 toy bird was singing its best, and the Emperor
lay in bed and heard it, something inside the bird said, "Svup!"
Something cracked. "Whir-r-r!" All the wheels ran round, and then the
music stopped.

The Emperor jumped at once out of bed, and had his own doctor called;
but what could he do? Then they sent for a watchmaker, and after a good
deal of talking and looking, he got the bird into some sort of order;
but he said that it must be looked after a good deal, for the barrels
were worn, and he could not put new ones in in such a manner that the
music would go. There was a great to-do; only once in a year did they
dare to let the bird sing, and that was almost too much. But then the
Play-master made a little speech, full of heavy words, and said this was
just as good as before--and so, of course, it was as good as before.

III--THE REAL NIGHTINGALE AGAIN

Five years had gone by, and a real grief came upon the whole nation. The
Chinese were really fond of their Emperor, and now he was sick, and
could not, it was said, live much longer. Already a new Emperor had been
chosen, and the people stood out in the street and asked the Cavalier
how thei