part. However, anything to oblige you."

He guesses at the first words what I require from him.

"Of course," he replies, "we shall see about it at once. In a week's
time, as it happens, a family from Simonoseki, in which there are two
charming daughters, will be here!"

"What! in a week! You don't know me, Monsieur Kangourou! No, no, either
now, to-morrow, or not at all."

Again a hissing bow, and Kangourou-San, understanding my agitation,
begins to pass in feverish review all the young persons at his disposal
in Nagasaki.

"Let us see--there was Mademoiselle Oeillet. What a pity that you did
not speak a few days sooner! So pretty! So clever at playing the guitar!
It is an irreparable misfortune; she was engaged only yesterday by a
Russian officer.

"Ah! Mademoiselle Abricot!--Would she suit you, Mademoiselle Abricot?
She is the daughter of a wealthy China merchant in the Decima Bazaar,
a person of the highest merit; but she would be very dear: her parents,
who think a great deal of her, will not let her go under a hundred
yen--[A yen is equal to four shillings.]--a month. She is very
accomplished, thoroughly understands commercial writing, and has at her
fingers'-ends more than two thousand characters of learned writing. In
a poetical competition she gained the first prize with a sonnet composed
in praise of 'the blossoms of the blackthorn hedges seen in the dew of
early morning.' Only, she is not very pretty: one of her eyes is smaller
than the other, and she has a hole in her cheek, resulting from an
illness of her childhood."

"Oh, no! on no account that one! Let us seek among a less distinguished
class of young persons, but without scars. And how about those on the
other side of the screen, in those fine gold-embroidered dresses? For
instance, the dancer with the spectre mask, Monsieur Kangourou? or again
she who sings in so dulcet a strain and has such a charming nape to her
neck?"

He does not, at first, understand my drift; then when he gathers my
meaning, he shakes his head almost in a joking way, and says:

"No, Monsieur, no! Those are only geishas,--[Geishas are professional
dancers and singers trained at the Yeddo Conservatory.]--Monsieur--
geishas!"

"Well, but why not a geisha? What difference can it make to me whether
they are geishas or not?" Later, no doubt, when I understand Japanese
affairs better, I shall appreciate myself the enormity of my proposal:
one would really suppose I had ta