n Chang Wang stepped into the boat of
his uncle, to drop slowly down the great Yang-se-kiang. Many a civil
word he said to Fing Fang and his sons, for civil words cost nothing.
Chang Wang sat in the boat, twisting the ends of his long mustaches,
and thinking how much money each row of plants in his tea-fields might
bring him. Presently, having finished his calculations, the miser
turned to watch his relations, who were pursuing their fishing
occupation in the way peculiar to China. Instead of rods, lines, or
nets, the Fing Fang family was provided with trained cormorants, which
are a kind of bird with a long neck, large appetite, and a particular
fancy for fish.

It was curious to watch a bird diving down in the sunny water, and
then suddenly come up again with a struggling fish in his bill. The
fish was, however, always taken away from the cormorant, and thrown by
one of the Fing Fangs into a well at the bottom of the boat.

"Cousin Ko," said the miser, leaning forward to speak, "how is it that
your clever cormorants never devour the fish they catch?"

"Cousin Chang Wang," replied the young man, "dost thou not see that
each bird has an iron ring round his neck, so that he cannot swallow?
He only fishes for others."

"Methinks the cormorant has a hard life of it," observed the miser,
smiling. "He must wish his iron ring at the bottom of the
Yang-se-kiang."

Fing Fang, who had just let loose two young cormorants from the boat,
turned round, and from his narrow slits of Chinese eyes looked keenly
upon his nephew.

"Didst thou ever hear of a creature," said he, "that puts an iron ring
around his own neck?"

"There is no such creature in all the land that the Great Wall
borders," replied Chang Wang.

Fing Fang solemnly shook the pigtail which hung down his back. Like
many of the Chinese, he had read a great deal, and was a kind of
philosopher in his way.

"Nephew Chang Wang," he observed, "_I_ know of a creature (and he is
not far off at this moment) who is always fishing for gain--constantly
catching, but never enjoying. Avarice--the love of hoarding--is the
iron ring round his neck; and so long as it stays there, he is much
like one of our trained cormorants--he may be clever, active,
successful, but he is only fishing for others."

I leave my readers to guess whether the sharp dealer understood his
uncle's meaning, or whether Chang Wang resolved in future not only to
catch, but to enjoy. Fing Fang's moral m