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. One of them was kept
by a Dane, who sold foreign toys, notions, dry-goods and
groceries such as might please the Chinese or be of use to the
scanty European population of the great capital. By chance some
of the eunuchs from the imperial palace, wandering about the city
in search of something to please little Tsai Tien, dropped into
this store on Legation Street and bought some of these foreign
toys for his infant Majesty.
They had already ransacked the city for Chinese toys. They had
gone to every fair, visited every toy-shop, called upon every
private dealer, and paid high prices for samples of their best
work made especially for the royal child. There were crowing
cocks and cackling hens; barking dogs and crying infants; music
balls and music carts; horns, drums, diabolos and tops; there
were gingham dogs and calico cats; camels, elephants and fierce
tigers; and a thousand other toys, if only he had had other
children to share them with him. But none of them pleased him.
They lacked that subtile something which was necessary to
minister to the peculiar genius of the child.
Among the foreign toys there were some in which there was
concealed a secret spring which seemed to impart life to the
otherwise dead plaything. Wind them up and they would move of
their own energy. This was what the boy needed,--something to
appeal to that machine-loving disposition which nature had given
him, and Budge and Toddy were never more curious to know "what
made the wheels go round" than was little Tsai Tien
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