Until his providential discovery of Sen, the distinguished Provider
had been immersed in a most unenviable condition of despair, for his
enlightened but exceedingly perverse-minded master had, of late,
declined to be in any way amused, or even interested, by the simple
and unpretentious entertainment which could be obtained in so
inaccessible a region. The well-intentioned efforts of the followers
of the Court, who engagingly endeavoured to divert the Imperial mind
by performing certain feats which they remembered to have witnessed on
previous occasions, but which, until the necessity arose, they had
never essayed, were entirely without result of a beneficial order.
Even the accomplished Provider's one attainment--that of striking
together both the hands and the feet thrice simultaneously, while
leaping into the air, and at the same time producing a sound not
unlike that emitted by a large and vigorous bee when held captive in
the fold of a robe, an action which never failed to throw the
illustrious Emperor into a most uncontrollable state of amusement when
performed within the Imperial Palace--now only drew from him the
unsympathetic, if not actually offensive, remark that the attitude and
the noise bore a marked resemblance to those produced by a person when
being bowstrung, adding, with unprepossessing significance, that of
the two entertainments he had an unevadable conviction that the
bowstringing would be the more acceptable and gravity-removing.
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