Page:Frank Owen - The Wind That Tramps the World (1929).djvu/26

 him. "Although I spoke the truth for surely if you are neither a fish nor a fowl you must be an animal."

"You are right," agreed Steppling. "I agree with you on every point. Therefore I think it but fitting for you to tell me your story."

Again Hi Ling hesitated. But finally he acquiesced.

"Years ago," he began, "I lived in Southern China. I was very wealthy. My ancestors had all contributed their share to the measure of my holdings. By profession I was a horticulturist. Even though forty years have passed the glory of my garden is still recounted throughout Southern China in innumerable little quaint tales of fantasy which have almost become legends. I raised all sorts of flowers but I specialized in jasmine, eglantine and wistaria blossoms. Particularly the last. I had a passion for the flowers as great as that of any renowned Sultan for the veiled ladies of his harem. So intent was I on the contemplation of my flowers I seldom left the garden. Sometimes I did not even return to my house to sleep. Instead I reclined in a charming grove at the back of my buildings where I could hear the tinkle of a tiny rivulet and where hundreds of gorgeous flowers breathed onto the air a perfume that made me drowsy, that caressed me to sleep, all care and worry forgotten. To me that garden was filled with countless soft-sweet voices. Flowers talk or rather perhaps it would be more descriptive to say, they sing, but it is given to few people of earth to hear their wondrous melodies. Of this few