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 the way they said it was with the corners of their mouths turned down, sneeringly. Clearly, they disbelieved. And one said, "There was never a hyena that didn't think his own son fairer than the King's child." The good doctor laughed heartily at that. He turned to Ah Fun and said (pounding on the bucket): "Ah Fun, treasure of my miserable heart, take you the bucket, and going to the well, fetch us home some water, for there is no milk, the terrible cow having kicked it over. Hence we can have only water with our Evening Rice. And be sure, my chiefest comfort, (rum dum, went the bucket), to rinse the bucket thoroughly, twice at least."

So Ah Fun took the shui tung (the bucket), and pretended he was going to the well. But the well was a li, a third of a mile distant. The ditch was only a few steps distant. That lazy Ah Fun stopped at the ditch and filled his shui tung. He came home with a bucket half full of green ditch water. And in the water was an old shoe, a discarded shoe, a shoe that someone had thrown away as