Page:Mrs. Spring Fragrance - Far - 1912.djvu/303

 with strips of sucking pig and heavenly fish fried in paradise oil, white balls of rice flour stuffed with sweetmeats, honey and rose-leaves, candied frogs and salted crabs, sugared seaweed and pickled stars."

He paused.

"Now, tell me," said the Wild Man, which of all things would you like best to eat?"

The Gentle Boy's eye wandered musingly over the Wild Man's gigantic proportions, his hungry mouth, his fanglike teeth. He flipped a ladybird insect off his silken cuff and smiled at the Wild Man as he did so.

"Best of all, honorable sir," he slowly said, "I would like to eat you."

The Wild Man sat transfixed, staring at the Gentle Boy, his mouth half open, the hair standing up on his head. And to this day he sits there, on the high road to Cheang Che, a piece of petrified stone.

 

HY do we never see the fairies?" asked Mermei.

"Because," replied her mother, "the fairies do not wish to be seen.

"But why, honorable mother, do they not wish to be seen?"

