As for the Little Emperor, he took one look at them and then yawned so hard that they were afraid he would dislocate his jaw. A little brown bird the color of a dead leaf had been hopping about on the ground under the chrysanthemums looking for something for its supper, and now suddenly flew up into a willow tree and began to sing. The Little Emperor clapped his hands, and all his servants dropped on their knees and began to kowtow. “Catch me that little brown bird with the beautiful song!” he said. He stopped yawning, and his eyes grew bright with eagerness. “But, Little Old Ancestor, that is such a plain little bird,” said his aunt timidly. “Surely you would rather have a cockatoo as pink as a cloud at dawn, or a pair of lovebirds as green as leaves in spring——” The rude Little Emperor paid not the slightest attention to her, but stamped his foot and shouted: “_Catch me that little brown bird!_” So his servants chased the poor little fluttering bird with butterfly nets. The wind whipped their bright silk skirts, and their pigtails streamed out behind, and they puffed and panted, for they were most of them very fat. [Illustration: His servants chased the bird with butterfly nets.] And at last the bird was caught, and put in a cage trimmed with tassels of purple silk and pearls, with drinking cup and seed cup made like the halves of plums from purple amethysts on brown amber twigs with green jade leaves. For a time the Little Emperor was delighted with his new pet, and every day he carried it in its cage when he went for a walk. But it never sang, only beat against the bars of its cage, or huddled on its perch, so presently he grew tired of it, and it was hung up in its cage in a dark corner of one of the Palace rooms, where he soon forgot all about it. How could the little bird sing? It was sick for the wide blue roads of the air, for wet green rice fields where the coolies stand with bare legs, sky-blue shirts, and bamboo hats as big as umbrellas, for the yellow rivers, and the mountains bright with red lilies. How could it sing in a cage? But sometimes it tried to cry to them: “Let me out! Please, _please_ let me out! I have never done anything to harm you! I am so unhappy I think my heart is breaking! _Please_ let me go free!” “What a sweet song!” everybody would say. “Run and tell the Little Emperor that his bird is singing again.” After a while the little bird realized that they did not understand, and it tried no longer, but drooped, dull-eyed and silent, in its cage. One night the Little Emperor had a dream. Perhaps you won’t wonder when I tell you what he had for supper. First he had tea in a bowl of jade as round and white as the moon, heaped up with honeysuckle flowers. Then, in yellow lacquer boxes, sugared seeds, sunflower and lotus flower and watermelon seeds, boiled walnuts, and lotus buds. Then velvety golden peaches and purple plums with a bloom of silver on them.