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room. It was to be in every respect a Japanese dinner; consequently there were (at the outset at least) no chairs, much less tables. After a while hospitality overcame the rigour of etiquette, and at a crisis when my unaccustomed knees were beginning to crack, a small stool was quietly brought in, on which I was able to sit without disturbing the harmony of the picture. That was effectively done by Mr. Dennison, an American gentleman in the confidence of the Foreign Office. Though he has lived many years in Japan, he has never been able to take kindly to the national posture, and now nothing less than a big cane chair suited the exigencies of his burly frame.

Outside, the garden was festooned with Chinese lanterns which softly illumined its dark recesses. A panel drawn aside at the foot of the room opened upon the veranda, which served admirably for a stage, on which three small children performed, during the meal, a touching drama. Hidden from view was a musician who played upon a samisen, a three-stringed instrument, as old as the sixteenth century, thrummed upon banjo-wise with the fingers. From time to time the musician, a woman, broke forth into a monotonous chant descriptive of the scene going

forward on the stage, and analytic of the motives of the characters; just as on the real stage the Jôruri singers assist the players.

For the sole actor in this dramatic company (two members were girls) this adventitious aid was quite superfluous. The youth was in his sixth year, the son of a small shopkeeper, who added something to his income by hiring out his children for these performances in private houses. I gathered the general plan of the play to be that he was a faithful retainer, whose young master (his sister, aged nine) was in love with a young lady, a character taken by a sprightly young thing of seven, who was, for family reasons, not an eligible party. The duty of young Roscius was to advise and, if possible, restrain his master from indulgence in this unhappy passion. The way he frowned and strutted, shook his gory locks, and waved his aged but still virile hand; the way he relapsed for a moment into attitudes of profound and saddened thought while the Jôruri singer told what was passing within his perturbed breast; the way when, angered past endurance, he threatened to draw an imaginary sword; his haughtiness, his affection for his master, his unbending hostility to the fair one, and, above all, the efforts he made when declaiming intense passages to produce bass

notes out of his piping treble, were things worth a journey to Japan to see and hear.

All were good, the maiden with her pretty face and quaint womanly manner, the love-lorn lord, patient to the last, under the tyranny of his truculent retainer. But the small boy was simply sublime, and should be heard of hereafter on a wider stage.

When we took our seats around the festive board, the first course was already served. Before each guest was placed a little lacquered tray, raised three or four inches from the ground. On it was a covered porcelain bowl, containing a small quantity of boiled rice. A second covered bowl of lacquer held some clear fish soup, which I made bold to eat, and found uncommonly good. As there was only chop-sticks to eat the rice, I said I rarely ate rice at this time of day, and passed it by. Nor did I care about the contents of the third bowl, which contained some mysterious-looking vegetables. Whilst we were discussing or regarding these delicacies, there entered a bevy of pretty serving-girls bearing lacquered cups for each guest and a little blue jar containing saké. It was slightly mulled, the small jars being replenished from a silver kettle.

Each guest has his appointed handmaid.

Mine was exceedingly pretty, a great addition to the picture as she gracefully knelt at the other side of the tray, watchful for opportunity to do service. As there was nothing particular to do, she filled up the time by smiling on me in the friendliest manner. smiled back, and we go on very well together without articulate speech.

I

Presently the little handmaiden rose, left the room, and with the others returned carrying a covered vessel of pure white wood. This was full of rice, with which she refilled the empty rice bowls, whilst another maiden, nearly as pretty, removed the bowls of clear soup, a third replacing them with lacquer bowls containing stewed wild ducks, raw fish, white cakes of bean paste, and a little bowl of pickles, which may have been savoury to the taste but were certainly unpleasant to the nose. After a while-just as young Roscius on the stage had discovered his master making signs over a supposititious garden wall to his lady-love, and murder seemed imminent-my little handmaid brought up another bowl containing a fresh kind of soup. Whilst I cautiously tasted this she went out again and brought in some fried fish on a plate, with a little ginger and pickled vegetables in a porceThe fish, I ascertained, was tai,

lain bowl.

a kind of plaice, and it is the correct thing to eat it with ginger. Sixthly, she brought another plate of fish stewed in soy, with a plate of lily bulbs and another of chestnuts.

Close on her heels came a girl bearing the wine kettle, this time quite hot. Having had sufficient saké in the cooler state, I declined a further supply, whereupon another kettle was brought. I said I would take some of that, not knowing its contents, but earnest in search of knowledge. It turned out to be plain hot water. It seems to be an accepted doctrine among the Japanese gourmands that at this stage of the feast "something hot " must be taken. For those who like it there is saké. Those who do not care for saké gurgle down hot water. I did not care for my supply now I had it, but the indefatigable handmaid placed on my tray, as others had served to them, a cup of hot water, with leaves of an aromatic plant floating on it, doing their best to counteract the influence of the pickled vegetables.

Here there was a pause. Cigarettes were served round, and some of the guests who had squatted on the floor through the dinner took the opportunity of stretching their limbs by strolling about the room and neighbouring apartments. Though what has gone before is

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