days he spends in calm meditation, doing nothing about the arrows. When one of his comrades discovers him sitting under a tree he is very much alarmed at the waste of time and suggests that the only thing left for his friend is to commit suicide. But our hero is undaunted. He places a number of straw men in the prows of a few boats and sails toward the position of the enemy. Owing to the dense fog the enemy commander is unable to ascertain the size of the attacking force, but he orders his archers to shoot as fast as they can. The arrows strike the straw men and pierce them without doing any harm. When 100,000 arrows have been caught up in his decoys, Chu Ko-liang orders his boats to retreat, and thus is able to deliver the required number of arrows to his commander on time. The manner in which the play is staged, with two or three arrows flitting across the scene, provides, at least for the Westerner, a distinct anticlimax. Another play in which three stars play together to good effect is “The Three Strange Meetings” (Ch’i San Hui) or, as it is popularly nicknamed, “The Three Pulls.” It is a popular comedy written during the time of the Manchu Dynasty, and is one of the favorite plays of Mei Lan-fang. Through his great prestige he is able to induce other stars to play with him, and when he presents the rôle of the wife supported by Chü Su-yün as husband and Li Shou-shan as father, the Chinese consider it a perfect performance. The play is rich in glimpses of Chinese life and also full of excellent opportunities for the actors to show their mettle. The opening of the play is also most unusual, for, like Goethe’s “Faust” and some of our other famous plays, it has a prologue in heaven. There is as a general thing no curtain used in the Chinese theater, a rule to which a scene in heaven forms an exception. Stage hands bring on a curtain about eight feet high and twelve feet wide, supported by bamboo poles and painted with clouds and bats to symbolize the sky. Behind this the stage is set for the divine scene. When the curtain is removed the spectator sees a god seated on a high throne. Four spirits bearing tall shields painted with the conventionalized cloud pattern stand by his side. The horns of the orchestra are blown mightily and fireworks are set off until finally the god begins to speak in a slow, impressive bass. Like a Homeric Zeus he sends a messenger to earth to free a certain innocent man who is languishing in prison. The messenger is ordered to find the man’s daughter and to conduct her to the prison. The divine herald departs, carrying a horsehair switch, the conventional symbol by which a spirit may be recognized on the Chinese stage. The next scene begins the first of the four acts on earth: 1. The Weeping in Prison; 2. Writing the Petition; 3. The Three Pulls; 4. The Family Reunited.