The Duke read, started, read again, consulted the date line, and then burst into a roar of laughter, His associates looked at him inquiringly and the old priest stepped back and watched him with tremulous anxiety. Then the Duke of Chan rose to his feet, and read aloud slowly and with some dramatic effect:
Hu-lu-erh-tou, Duke of Chan, of the Red Bordered Banner, is hereby decorated with the 3rd Class of the Order of the Striped Tiger.
Hu-lu-erh-tou, Duke of Chan, of the Red Bordered Banner, is hereby appointed First Class Adviser to the Bureau of the General Staff for the organization of the new Mongolian army."
Still smiling, while his asso-clates listened with a certain degree of awe, the Duke picked up a match from the litter on the table, struck it, touched it to the paper and held it before him until it had burned to his finger tips, when he scattered the ashes with a puff of his breath.
""The Duke of Chan, of the Red Bordered Banner, declines,' said he looking about him with an air of amused triumph. "There are better jobs open to men whose father's have left them a little fighting blood. Isn't it so old man?"
He turned to old Priest, and added. 'I greet you as my teacher. I am your disciple, my venerable friend; but I'll tell you I might not have been such an apt one if that bird had not been stolen."
No, no!" the old man objected with all seriousness. "It was neither I nor the bird. The time had come. I've said it all along, the time had come."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.