he would have freedom to go and come at will, toys to play
with, children to contend with him in games, and everything in a home
of wealth that is dear to the heart of a child. And for what? She
folded him in her arms, adopted him as her own son, and carried him
into the Forbidden--and no doubt to him forbidding--City, where his
world was one mile square, without freedom, without another child
within its great bare walls, where he was the one lone, solitary man
among thousands of eunuchs and women. The next morning when the
imperial clan assembled to condole with her on the death of her son,
she bore little Tsai Tien into their midst declaring: "Here is your
emperor."

At that time there were situated on Legation Street, in Peking, two
foreign stores that had been opened without the consent of the Chinese
government, for in those days the capital had not been opened to
foreign trade. As the stores were small, and in such close proximity to
the various legations, the most of whose supplies they furnished, they
seem to have been too unimportant to attract official attention, though
they were destined to have a mighty influence on the future of China.
One of them was kept by a Dane, who sold foreign toys, notions,
dry-goods and groceries such as might please the Chinese or be of use
to the scanty European population of the great capital. By chance some
of the eunuchs from the imperial palace, wandering about the city in
search of something to please little Tsai Tien, dropped into this store
on Legation Street and bought some of these foreign toys for his infant
Majesty.

They had already ransacked the city for Chinese toys. They had gone to
every fair, visited every toy-shop, called upon every private dealer,
and paid high prices for samples of their best work made especially for
the royal child. There were crowing cocks and cackling hens; barking
dogs and crying infants; music balls and music carts; horns, drums,
diabolos and tops; there were gingham dogs and calico cats; camels,
elephants and fierce tigers; and a thousand other toys, if only he had
had other children to share them with him. But none of them pleased
him. They lacked that subtile something which was necessary to minister
to the peculiar genius of the child.

Among the foreign toys there were some in which there was concealed a
secret spring which seemed to impart life to the otherwise dead
plaything. Wind them up and they would move of their own energy