We do not know to this day to what circumstance we owed the honour of
appearing in print in Japan--whether we were mistaken for individuals
of distinction, or whether we were considered remarkable on our own
merits on account of being by ourselves; but we went downstairs fully
believing it to be a custom of the country, a rather flattering custom,
to which we were much pleased to conform; and this is a true chronicle
of what happened.
It was a slender, round-faced youth who made his deprecating bow to us
in the drawing-room. His shoulders sloped, his gray-blue kimono lay in
narrow folds across his chest like what the old-fashioned people at
home used to call a sontag. American boots were visible under the skirt
of the garment, and an American stiff felt hat reposed on the sofa
beside him. His thick, short black hair stood crisply on end, and out
of his dark eyes slanted a look of modest inquiry. He was the most
unaggressive reporter I have ever seen. His boots and his hat were the
only things about him that I could connect with journalism, as I had
previously been acquainted with it.
"How do you do?" I said, seeing that the silence must be broken and the
preliminaries gone through with by somebody.
"Yes!" he responded, with an amiability that induced Orthodocia to get
up hurriedly and look out of the window. "Did the radies arrive to the
_Duke of Westminster_?" looking from one to the other of us.
"We believe they did!" gasped Orthodocia, and immediately looked out of
the window again. I edged my chair toward the other window. Then the
cloven foot appeared in the shape of a note-book. He produced it with
gentle ostentation, as one would a trump card. The simile is complete
when I add that he took it from his sleeve.
"How old is rady?" calmly, deliberately.
"I--I forget," falsified this historian; "forty-five, I believe."
The reporter put it down.
"Other rady, your friend,--not so old? Older? More old?"
"I am twenty-two years of age," said Orthodocia gravely, with a
reproachful glance at me, "and I weigh ten stone. Height, five feet
eight inches. In shoes, I am in the habit of wearing fives; in gloves,
six and a half."
The reporter scribbled convulsively.
"Radies will study Japanese porryticks--please say."
"I beg pardon?"
"Yes." Fills another page.