No doubt you will think this story begins in a very strange place when you learn that it starts on board a Chinese junk or ship, as it sailed up a muddy Chinese river on its way to the city of Ki Yi.
Now most Chinese ships are dingy and dirty but this particular junk was just the opposite. Its sails were new, its decks neat and clean, and all because it carried a mandarin of high rank on his way to a wedding feast in the distant town. Very fat this mandarin was, and very smiling, and the wedding presents he carried were enormously valuable—gold and silver, and silks and jewels—packed away in his cabin; and the sight of them made the mouths of the captain and crew water. So finally the sailors and their commander determined to throw the mandarin overboard and take the presents for themselves.
However, as Chinese people are always polite, no matter what the circumstances, instead of going below and seizing him without another word, they sent the cabin boy, Dong, down with a note requesting the pleasure of the mandarin's presence on deck at once and expressing their deep regret that they would have to put an end to him.
"Ahem!" remarked the mandarin, as he finished reading the note, "how very kind of them."
Then looking over his horn spectacles he examined Dong, the cabin boy, as he stood before him. "I'm awfully sorry," he said, "that a boy like you—you can't be more than seven—and such a nice looking boy, too, should join in such a wicked conspiracy. How would you like to be drowned?"
Dong shook his head. "I wouldn't like it," he said.
"No more do I," replied the mandarin, "and yet, unless you save me, I shall be."
"But," said Dong, "how can I save you? I would if I could, but I am only a boy."
"That makes no difference," said the mandarin; "if you are a brave boy, you can do it."
Then he handed Dong a large fan and told him to go up on deck and fan the captain and the crew with three big sweeps and they would dissolve like mist. "I'd do it myself," he continued, "but I'm afraid they'd seize me before I could get a chance to do it and throw me overboard. But of course they will not suspect you."