A little brown bird the color of a dead leaf had been hopping about on the ground under the chrysanthemums looking for something for its supper, and now suddenly flew up into a willow tree and began to sing.
The Little Emperor clapped his hands, and all his servants dropped on their knees and began to kowtow.
“Catch me that little brown bird with the beautiful song!” he said. He stopped yawning, and his eyes grew bright with eagerness.
“But, Little Old Ancestor, that is such a plain little bird,” said his aunt timidly. “Surely you would rather have a cockatoo as pink as a cloud at dawn, or a pair of lovebirds as green as leaves in spring——”
The rude Little Emperor paid not the slightest attention to her, but stamped his foot and shouted:
“Catch me that little brown bird!”
So his servants chased the poor little fluttering bird with butterfly nets. The wind whipped their bright silk skirts, and their pigtails streamed out behind, and they puffed and panted, for they were most of them very fat.
His servants chased the bird with butterfly nets.
And at last the bird was caught, and put in a cage trimmed with tassels of purple silk and pearls, with drinking cup and seed cup made like the halves of plums from purple amethysts on brown amber twigs with green jade leaves.