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HERE was once, in Japan, in times so far away that the learned hardly now dare speak of them, a poor little stone-breaker who worked on the highways.

He worked on the highways as long as the day lasted, in all weathers, in all seasons, in rain, in the burning sunshine, and in snow. He was always half dead with fatigue and three-quarters dead with hunger; and he was not at all contented with his lot. "Oh! how I would bless heaven," he said, "if one day I became rich enough to sleep far into the morning, to eat when I was hungry, and drink when I was athirst. I am told that there are people so blessed by fate as always to be gay and full of food. Stretched at ease upon thick mats before my door, my back covered with soft silken vestments, I would take my afternoon nap, wakened every quarter of an hour by a servant, who should remind me that I had nothing to do, and that I might sleep without remorse."

A passing angel overheard these words, and smiled.

"Be it according to your wish, poor man!" the angel said. And, suddenly, the