" observed
Ito. "One bowl very unlucky; at the funeral we only eat one bowl."

This to Geoffrey was the _coup de grace_. He had only managed to stuff
down his bowl through a desperate sense of duty.

"If I do have a second," he gasped, "it will be my own funeral."

But this joke did not run in the well-worn lines of Japanese humour.
Mr. Ito merely thought that the big Englishman, having drunk much
_sake_, was talking nonsense.

All the guests were beginning to circulate now; the quadrille was
becoming more and more elaborate. They were each calling on each
other and taking wine. The talk was becoming more animated. A few bold
spirits began to laugh and joke with the _geisha_. Some had laid aside
their cloaks; and some even had loosened their kimonos at the neck,
displaying hairy chests. The stiff symmetry of the dinner party
was quite broken up. The guests were scattered like rooks, bobbing,
scratching and pecking about on the yellow mats. The bright plumage of
the _geisha_ stood out against their sombre monotony.

Presently the _geisha_ began to dance at the far end of the room. Ten
of the little girls did their steps, a slow dance full of posturing
with coloured handkerchiefs. Three of the elder _geisha_ in plain grey
kimonos squatted behind the dancers, strumming on their _samisens_.
But there was very little music either in the instrument or in the
melody. The sound of the string's twang and the rattle of the bone
plectrum drowned the sweetness of the note. The result was a kind of
dry clatter or cackle which is ingenious, but not pleasing.

Reggie Forsyth used to say that there is no melody in Japanese music;
but that the rhythm is marvelous. It is a kind of elaborate ragtime
without any tune to it.

The guests did not pay any attention to the performance, nor did they
applaud when it was over.

Mr. Ito was consulting his _agenda_ paper and his gold watch.

"You will now drink with these gentlemen," he said. Geoffrey must have
demurred.

"It is Japanese custom," he continued; "please step this way; I will
guide you."

Poor Geoffrey! it was his turn now to do the visiting figure, but
his head was buzzing with some thirty cups of _sake_ which he had
swallowed out of politeness, and with the unreality of the whole
scene.

"Can't do it," he protested; "drunk too much already."

"In Japan we say, 'When friends meet the _sake_ sellers laugh!'"
quoted the lawyer. "It is Japanese custom to drink together,