, and she did. She wanted
to buy curios. I at once suggested Inchie, which was a happy
inspiration. Inchie came round, and I left them in the reading-room
together discussing cloisonne umbrella handles. My companion was lost
to me for three full days, being wholly occupied with the fair visitant.
He turned up at last, but in a state of fever, his eyes sparkling and
blinking indignantly. He handed me a letter that he had just written to
his latest customer, my friend the bulbous fair, who had left for
Shanghai that day. "You order me much porcelain; you order me many
curios; I no can send. I think you better go porcelain Yokohama. Much
cheaper you get Yokohama, more number one," Inchie's letter ran. "Yes;
but, Inchie," I remonstrated, "why won't you serve her? She's a good
customer for you." He was violent with rage. "I no like the lady," he
said; "she no daimio lady. Tea-house lady, I think, with tea-coloured
hair. She received me with not a proper dress on; she smoke and drink. I
no want to serve lady like that. She no friend of yours?" he added,
eagerly looking into my face with his piercing little eyes. "No, no,
Inchie! of course not," I replied, for I wasn't going to claim her. "Ah,
I thought she no friend of yours," and Inchie smiled, while I felt that
I was respected once more and entered into his good graces--it turned
out for ever.

"Now, Inchie," I said to him one day, "I want to get a good porcelain
man, the best in Tokio. Can you manage it?" There was nothing, so far as
I knew, that Inchie could not manage, so that in a very short time he
had found a little man, a pupil of the most eminent porcelain maker in
Tokio, also celebrated for his remarkable glazes, who had just started a
business of his own. We drove round to his store to ask him if he would
undertake the painting of a dinner-service, and do other things for me.
He was a young man, this particular painter, but with the face of a very
old one, careworn and haggard, quite an enthusiast, full of interest in
his art, and a craftsman of the highest order. When he found that I too
was in the same ranks, his sympathies were aroused, and he devoted a
whole month solely to the firing and painting of my porcelain. After a
time I began to understand the man and his processes. He brought out
little bits of choice Chinese-blue porcelain to show me. Whenever there
was to be a three-days' firing he would come round to my hotel and
inform me of it. Altogether he dev