Thanks to him who made the table, he made it of generous width. The Queen’s youngest brother could not quite reach across it. His murderous spoon merely parted the King’s beard. It was a most atrocious deed, meriting extreme punishment, but it caused no actual pain. Its main effect was upon the King’s dignity. But this time His Royal Mightiness said nothing of the headsman. He imagined that his wife would most likely raise objections. No. The King said nothing of punishment. Instead, he rewarded the Queen’s youngest brother, appointed him director of the Imperial Gunpowder Factory, with a bed in the factory. . . . And gave him six pounds of smoking tobacco.
The three attempts upon his life worked havoc with Cheng Chang’s nerves. When eating breakfast, he could never look at a knife without shuddering. Seated at dinner, each time he touched a fork cold chills raced down his marrow. At supper, he could scarcely eat because of the spoon. Each glance at the spoon wrought from His Majesty a groan of dread.
So King Cheng Chang did a most wise thing. He abolished knives and forks and spoons. He ate his rice and duck with the aid of two harmless, delicate, little sticks. There was nothing about the sticks to inspire uneasiness. They were incapable of hurt.
The little sticks used by King Cheng Chang were called Chop-Sticks. Chop means good.
Naturally enough, all the people in Cheng Chang’s kingdom soon were using chop-sticks. They wished to do as the King did. People are like that. Chop-sticks became, first, fashionable, then, universal. Every one used them.
Wherefore, today King Cheng Chang is remembered not for his roast duck—which was heavenly, and gained him the throne—but for his chop-sticks—which are wood, mere wood.
BUY A FATHER
The Street of Wang’s Broken Tea Cup lies between Seven Thieves Market and the long wharf where ship bottoms from all the world (and, as some say, the moon) discharge their varied cargoes. Queer sights are so excessively common there that the Phoenix bird lighting a match to his feathers would, probably, excite only ordinary interest. Nevertheless, the people do possess eyes, and they are provided with ears. Now and again they can be made to open those eyes, and sharpen those ears into eager hearing. The ridiculous, in especial, rouses their attention. There was the wit-wandering beggar, Weng Fu, as an instance.
Weng Fu walked in the Street of Wang’s Broken Tea Cup, bearing a great bundle of bamboo switches upon his back, and shouting thunderously. . . . “Who’ll buy? Who’ll buy? What young man wishes to buy him a father?” Whereat, several persons gathered, laughing. “I, Weng Fu, will sell myself as a father to any young man for only five cash.” The crowd and the laughter increased. “Who’ll buy a pretty father? An orphan may have me for only one cash. A most excellent father I’ll be to my son. I promise to beat him twice each day. Of every hundred cash he earns I’ll take only ninety-nine and he may keep one. I’ll even let him sleep upon warm ashes in the bed-stove. Ho—young men, come buy—come buy.”
The shopkeepers left their stalls unguarded as they gathered round Weng Fu to mock and express their not-flattering opinions. “Surely,” said they, “this is the oddest fellow we have had in a long while. He must think our young men are silly as Ko Chih, who scrabbled in the deep snow of January, searching for plums. Ho. Ho. Ho. Was there ever anything more ridiculous? A pretty father he would make. Pretty indeed.” A crowd of boys assembled to have sport with the fantastic beggar. “Here, most honorable Father—here is five cash, and I will be your dutiful son.” A richly dressed youth held out some money to Weng Fu. But when Weng Fu grabbed at it, the boy shut his hand and ran away swiftly, cackling in well-pleased laughter. After him plunged the greedy beggar, his tattered clothing flapping like strings on a scarecrow. A bystander put out a foot. The old man tripped heels over head in the deep black mud. Then the crowd slip-slapped on, mildly interested in a fight between Wan the hunchback who had only one leg, and a blackamoor who had no arms.