The whole town talked about the marvellous bird, and if two people met, one said to the other ‘Night,’ and the other answered ‘Gale,’ and then they sighed, perfectly understanding each other.  Eleven cheesemongers’ children were called after it, but they had not got a voice among them.

One day a large parcel came for the emperor; outside was written the word ‘Nightingale.’

‘Here we have another new book about this celebrated bird,’ said the emperor.  But it was no book; it was a little work of art in a box, an artificial nightingale, exactly like the living one, but it was studded all over with diamonds, rubies and sapphires.

When the bird was wound up it could sing one of the songs the real one sang, and it wagged its tail, which glittered with silver and gold.  A ribbon was tied round its neck on which was written, ’The Emperor of Japan’s nightingale is very poor compared to the Emperor of China’s.’

Everybody said, ‘Oh, how beautiful!’ And the person who brought the artificial bird immediately received the title of Imperial Nightingale-Carrier in Chief.

‘Now, they must sing together; what a duet that will be.’

Then they had to sing together, but they did not get on very well, for the real nightingale sang in its own way, and the artificial one could only sing waltzes.

‘There is no fault in that,’ said the music-master; ’it is perfectly in time and correct in every way!’

Then the artificial bird had to sing alone.  It was just as great a success as the real one, and then it was so much prettier to look at; it glittered like bracelets and breast-pins.

[Illustration:  Then it again burst into its sweet heavenly song.]

‘That is the most delightful coquetting I have ever seen!’ said the ladies, and they took some water into their mouths to try and make the same gurgling, thinking so to equal the nightingale._

It sang the same tune three and thirty times over, and yet it was not tired; people would willingly have heard it from the beginning again, but the emperor said that the real one must have a turn now—­but where was it?  No one had noticed that it had flown out of the open window, back to its own green woods.

‘But what is the meaning of this?’ said the emperor.

All the courtiers railed at it, and said it was a most ungrateful bird.

‘We have got the best bird though,’ said they, and then the artificial bird had to sing again, and this was the thirty-fourth time that they heard the same tune, but they did not know it thoroughly even yet, because it was so difficult.

The music-master praised the bird tremendously, and insisted that it was much better than the real nightingale, not only as regarded the outside with all the diamonds, but the inside too.

’Because you see, my ladies and gentlemen, and the emperor before all, in the real nightingale you never know what you will hear, but in the artificial one everything is decided beforehand!  So it is, and so it must remain, it can’t be otherwise.  You can account for things, you can open it and show the human ingenuity in arranging the waltzes, how they go, and how one note follows upon another!’