He—But, pet, I assure you, I adore you.
She—No, no, no! No man can love a woman with such old clothes as mine.—Le Rire.
The Bell of Kuang Sai.
By EDWARD W. GILBERT.
An original story written for The Scrap Book.
“They are ghouls, and their king it is who tolls.”
“Heaven born, forbear anger; in one little half-hour, or an hour at most, the bearers shall be here, and we will go forward with the speed of dragons. In the meantime, I will place a rug for the Presence to sit upon, and give him fire that he may drink tobacco.”
Jarvis assented with a sulky grunt, tossed Chen, his Chinese runner, a cigar, and lay on his back smoking and staring up into the dark hollow of the great bell suspended on a stone tripod.
“After labor it is good to lie at ease and smoke, especially when the Presence, who is my father and mother, bestows such tobacco. If the Heaven Born desires, I will tell him the tale of the great bell under which we lie. I have permission? Thus runs the tale:
“Kublai-Chan, Lord of the Earth, desired greatly to leave a memory such as no other king should ever equal, and after much thought he called Kuang Sai, the great artist in all metals, and commanded: