d
evidence. Very strict orders, including the absolute prohibition of
bones, had been issued with regard to Wow's diet. The ideas of a country
in which little dogs eat, but are not eaten, require liberality in his
opinion, and Wow made up his mind he would have his bones without
incurring the penalties of disobedience, which his master, in the
interests of the delicate foreigner, was determined to inflict. A
commodious and elegant residence was fitted up in the study for Wow, and
he was permitted free access to the upper floors of the house, but the
line was drawn at the kitchen staircase. That way lay bones and ruin,
and its easy descent was interdicted by stern command, which Wow
understood as clearly as did its utterer, though he at first affected a
simple and unconscious misapprehension. Then Wow was reproved and gently
chastised, an administration of justice performed with the utmost
reluctance by his master, but with the happiest results. Nothing could
be more admirable than Wow's submission, more perfect than his
obedience. He never looked towards the kitchen stairs, and would attend
at the family meals without following the retiring dishes with a wistful
gaze, or betraying a longing for the forbidden bones by so much as a
sniff. Attached to the lower department of the household is a humble
cat, a faithful creature in her way, but not cultivated by my friend as
I could wish. With this meek and useful animal Wow contracted a
friendship regarded by his master as a proof of his amiability and
condescension. (In my capacity of narrator I am compelled to use the
latter somewhat injurious term--as a private individual with an undying
recollection, I repudiate it). But the single-minded Q.C. had something
to learn of the four-footed exile from the Far East concerning this
intimacy. Coming into his study one day at an unusual hour, he saw the
cat--I do not know her name, I am afraid she has not one--stealthily
depositing a bone behind a curtain. Presently she went downstairs, and
returned with a second bone, which she conveyed to the same place of
concealment, whence proceeded a gentle rustling and whisking, suggestive
of the presence of Wow, whose house, or pagoda, was empty. Then arose
the Q.C., and cautiously peeped behind the curtain, where he beheld Wow
and his humble friend amicably discussing their respective bones, Wow's
being the bigger and the meatier of the two.

Thus did the Japanese exile illustrate the cosm