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that I can make magics, and to keep you humble, Pau Amma; for I
see that if you can run both under the water and on land, you
will grow too bold; and if you can climb trees and crack nuts and
dig holes with your scissors, you will grow too greedy, Pau
Amma.'

Then Pau Amma thought a little and said, 'I have made my choice.
I will take all the gifts.'

Then the Eldest Magician made a Magic with the right hand, with
all five fingers of his right hand, and lo and behold, Best
Beloved, Pau Amma grew smaller and smaller and smaller, till at
last there was only a little green crab swimming in the water
alongside the canoe, crying in a very small voice, 'Give me the
scissors!'

And the girl-daughter picked him up on the palm of her little
brown hand, and sat him in the bottom of the canoe and gave him
her scissors, and he waved them in his little arms, and opened
them and shut them and snapped them, and said, 'I can eat nuts. I
can crack shells. I can dig holes. I can climb trees. I can
breathe in the dry air, and I can find a safe Pusat Tasek under
every stone. I did not know I was so important. Kun?' (Is this
right?)

'Payah-kun,' said the Eldest Magician, and he laughed and gave
him his blessing; and little Pau Amma scuttled over the side of
the canoe into the water; and he was so tiny that he could have
hidden under the shadow of a dry leaf on land or of a dead shell
at the bottom of the sea.

'Was that well done?' said the Eldest Magician.

'Yes,' said the Man. 'But now we must go back to Perak, and that
is a weary way to paddle. If we had waited till Pau Amma had gone
out of Pusat Tasek and come home, the water would have carried us
there by itself.'

'You are lazy,' said the Eldest Magician. 'So your children shall
be lazy. They shall be the laziest people in the world. They
shall be called the Malazy--the lazy people;' and he held up his
finger to the Moon and said, 'O Fisherman, here is the Man too
lazy to row home. Pull his canoe home with your line, Fisherman.'

'No,' said the Man. 'If I am to be lazy all my days, let the Sea
work for me twice a day for ever. That will save paddling.'

And the Eldest Magician laughed and said, 'Payah kun' (That is
right).

And the Rat of the Moon stopped biting the line; and the
Fisherman let his line down till it touched the Sea, and he
pulled the whole deep Sea along, past the Island of Bintang, past
Singapore, past Malacca, past Selangor, till the canoe whirled
into the mouth of the Perak River again. Kun?' said the Fisherman
of the Moon.

'Payah kun,' said the Eldest Magician. 'See now that you pull the
Sea twice a day and twice a night for ever, so that the Malazy
fishermen may be saved paddling. But be careful not to do it too
hard, or I shall make a magic on you as I did to Pau Amma.'

Then they all went up the Perak River and went to bed, Best

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