It's nice to be able to look back on the thing, because I was so up my own ass at the time about everything that it was hard to enjoy all the craziness...

With the uproot of the Chinese commercial system in the 1890s such a crisis was bound to surface.

[…] that mine own servant should Parcel the sum of my disgraces by Addition of his envy!

As he had figured it out so far, the cupboard, or the key, or both together, brought plastic things to life, or if they were already alive, turned them into plastic. There were a lot of questions to be answered, though. Did it only work with plastic? Would, say, wooden or metal figures also come to life if shut up in the cupboard?