"_Neko-San?_" ("It is Messrs. the cats?")
"No!" she replies, still terrified and in an alarming tone.
"_Bakémono-Sama?_" ("Is it my lords the ghosts?") I have already the
Japanese habit of expressing myself with excessive politeness.
'No!!" _"Dorobo!!"_("Thieves!!") Thieves! Ah this is better; I much
prefer this to a visit such as I have just been, dreading in the
sudden awakening from sleep: from ghosts or spirits of the dead;
thieves, that is to say, worthy fellows very much alive, and having
undoubtedly, in as much as they are Japanese thieves, faces of the
most meritorious oddity. I am not in the least frightened, now that I
know precisely what to expect, and we will immediately set to work to
ascertain the truth, for something is decidedly moving on Madame
Prune's roof; some one is walking upon it.