AN INNER CHAMBER OF YU-PING
"Fortunately it is possible to take a broad-minded view of your uncourteous action, owing to your sense of the fitnesses being for the time in abeyance through allegiance to so engaging a maiden as Melodious Vision," said Pe-lung in a voice not devoid of reproach. "Had you but confided in me more fully I should certainly have cautioned you in time. As it is, you have ended by notching your otherwise capable weapon beyond repair and seriously damaging the scanty cloak I wear"—indicating the numerous rents that marred his dress of costly fur. "No wonder dejection sits upon your downcast brow."
"Your priceless robe is a matter of profuse regret and my self-esteem can only be restored by your accepting in its place this threadbare one of mine. My rust-eaten sword is unworthy of your second thought. But certainly neither of these two details is the real reason of my dark despair."
"Disclose yourself more openly," urged Pe-lung.
"I now plainly recognise the futility of my well-intentioned quest. Obviously it is impossible to kill a dragon, and I am thus the sport either of Melodious Vision's deliberate ridicule or of my own ill-arranged presumption."
"Set your mind at rest upon that score: each blow was competently struck and convincingly fatal. You may quite fittingly claim to have slain half-a-dozen dragons at the least—none of the legendary champions of the past has done more."
"Yet how can so arrogant a claim be held, seeing that you stand before me in the unimpaired state of an ordinary existence?"
"The explanation is simple and assuring. It is, in
189
