supplied with food—food none too nourishing, but food nevertheless.
There are many channels through which kings may receive news and rumors and tittle-tattle. What with the secret police and the mandarins who wish to gain favor and the—the sparrows—the royal palace keeps well informed. (Besides, one historian takes several pages to prove that Tiao Fu possessed a tongue and could use it to her advantage.) However that may be, the news spread. Within a day King Ho Chu learned how the maid Tiao Fu had provided a feast at the expense of her hair. He learned all about the shredded matting, and his laughter shook the throne. He bestowed more than a passing thought upon Tiao Fu of the quaintly bobbed locks—the maiden a thousand years ahead of her time. And having thought—he acted. He said to the Minister of Domestic Affairs, "Prepare a room with hangings of orange-colored silk." To the Minister of the Treasury he said, "Bestow a dozen or so bars of gold upon the mandarin Ching Chi." The Minister of Matrimony received his com-
