"Mikado, you are superior to the sun, you are eternal, you are invincible. All that the mind of man can conceive you can execute. Justice itself is subordinate to your will, and providence waits on your counsels tremblingly." The stone-breaker said to himself: "Very good! these people know my value." [Illustration: "THE LITTLE STONE-BREAKER SPARKLED IN THE HEAVENS."] The sun, which had been shining very ardently for some days, had parched the country. The road was dusty, and the glare from it fatigued the eyes of the apprentice Mikado, who, addressing his minister, the bearer of the jingling umbrella, said: "Inform the sun that he is incommoding me. His familiarities displease me. Tell him that the great Emperor of Japan authorises him to retire. Go!" The prime minister confided to a chamberlain the honour of carrying the jingling umbrella, and went on his mission. He returned almost instantly, his face expressing the utmost consternation. "Great Emperor, sovereign of gods and men, it is inconceivable! The sun pretends not to have heard me, and continues to burn up the road!" "Let him be chastised." "Certainly! such insolence deserves it; but how am I to get hold of him to administer his punishment?" "Am I not the equal of the gods?" "Assuredly, great Mikado, at least their equal." "You told me, just now, that nothing is impossible to me. Either you have lied, or you resist me, or you have badly executed my orders; I give you five minutes to extinguish the sun, or ten to have your head chopped off. Go!" The prime minister departed, and did not return. The exasperated stone-breaker was purple with anger. "This is a pretty sort of a dog's business, upon my word, to be emperor, if he has to submit to the familiarities, caprices, and brutalities of a mere circulating star. It is plain that the sun is more powerful than I. I wish I were the sun." "Be it as you wish!" said the angel. [Illustration: "NEVER DID SO MUCH RAIN FALL."] And the little stone-breaker sparkled in the highest heavens, radiant, flaming. He took pleasure in scorching trees, withering their leaves, and parching up springs; in covering with perspiration the august visages of emperors as well as the dusty muzzles of the wayside stone-breakers--his companions of the morning. But a cloud came between the earth and him, and the cloud said: "Halt, my dear fellow; you can't come this way!" "By the moon, that's too much! A cloud--a poor little misty, bodiless cloud--calls me familiarly, 'my dear fellow,' and bars my way! Clouds, it is plain, are more powerful than I. If I do not become a cloud, I shall burst with jealousy." "Don't burst for so trifling a cause," said the angel, always on the watch. "Be a cloud, since you prefer to be so." Proudly the new cloud planted himself between the earth and the resplendent planet.