A NICE, TIDY DRAWING-ROOM 199 
Argus Pheasant does quite right to act in this way, 
and that to keep one’s drawing-room clean and tidy 
is a very proper thing todo. Your mother may be 
surprised, perhaps, that it is the male Argus Pheasant, 
and not the hen bird, that does it, but I am sure she 
will not blame zm on that account. But I am sorry 
to say that the wicked little demon has found out a 
way of making this habit of the poor bird’s—which 
is such a good one—a means of killing him. 
The people who live in that part of the world— 
those yellow people called Malays that I have told 
you of—know all about the ways of the Argus 
Pheasant, and how he will wot have things lying 
about in his drawing-room. Now there is a great 
tall reed that grows there, called the bamboo, which I 
am sure you have heard of, and which your mother 
will tell you all about. The Malays cut off a piece of 
this bamboo, about two feet long, and then they 
shave it down—all except about six inches at one end 
of it—till it is almost as thin as writing paper. It 
looks like a piece of ribbon then, only, as it is very 
hard, as well as thin, its edges are quite sharp, and 
able to cut like a razor. But the piece at the end, 
which has been left and not shaved down, they cut 
into a point, so that it makes a peg, and this peg, that 
has a ribbon at the end of it, they stick into the 
ground, right in the middle of the Argus Pheasant’s 
