TŌKYŌ, July, 1898.
DEAR McDONALD,--I mailed you this morning the raw proofs, and the _Revue
des Deux Mondes_. I fear you will find the former rather faulty in their
present unfinished state. But if you mount Fuji you will be a glorious
critic.
I don't know how to tell you about the sense of all the pleasant
episodes of yesterday, coupled with the feeling that I must have seemed
too sombre toward the close,--instead of showing to you and friend
Amenomori the happiest face possible. I was unusually naughty--I
suppose; but I was worried a little. However, my sky is only clouded for
moments--and my friends know that appearances signify nothing serious.
We had adventures at Shimbashi. I saw a well-dressed fellow getting
rather close to my wife while she was counting some small change; and
I pushed in between her and him--just in time; for she had found his
hand on her girdle, trying to get her watch. Then I had a hand poked in
my right side-pocket, and another almost simultaneously into my left
breast-pocket. The men got nothing from either of us. What interested
me was the style of the work. The man I noticed especially was a
delicate-looking young fellow, very genteelly dressed, and wearing
spectacles. He pretended to be very hot, and was holding his hat in
his left hand before him, and working under it with his right. The
touching of the pocket with the fingers reminded me of nothing so much
as the motion of a cat's paw in playing. You know the cat does not give
a single stroke, but a succession of taps, so quickly following each
other that you can scarcely see how it is done. The incident was rather
curious and amusing than provoking.