funny to see the way Inchie would crawl over a piece of wood,
like the small monkey that he was, scratching, rubbing, picking it with
his nail, and even putting his tongue upon it to test its quality. At
last a plank was found that was declared to be "berry number one," and
the great undertaking, the work of carving it, began. Five men were at
work on it for five months. And now that it is completed and fixed in my
chrysanthemum hall, it is a triumph! It is a joy--it is a possession! At
the same time, when we were in Osaka, Inchie was struck with another
brilliant idea. I must have a gong, he said, a superb gong; and as
Inchie himself had once been a metal-worker, he was an excellent judge
of gongs and undertook to choose one for me. Before that day I had no
notion that there could be such a vast difference in gongs. We went to
about twenty or thirty stores in Osaka, at each of which several gongs
were produced for our inspection. And Inchie bounded about the shop like
a cat or a leopard, from one corner of the room to the other, crouching
down on the ground with his hand over his ear, striking each in turn,
and listening to its vibration. "No berry good that," he would whisper
to me, and then, talking charmingly to the merchant,--for Inchie was
always charming--he would bow himself gracefully out of the shop. At
each store in turn the same thing happened, until at last we reached a
shop which seemed to me still more improbable than the rest, for it was
a dirty little hole of a place, with no such thing as a gong in sight.
In reply to our usual question the proprietor dived into a tangled bit
of garden at the back, and presently reappeared with an old rusty gong,
very thin with age and use and exposure to all weathers, and looking not
worth twopence. Inchie struck it, and the expression on his face was
extraordinary as he looked round at me. The tone was superb. This was
the gong of gongs! "That berry number one," he exclaimed in a stage
whisper. We secured the gong for a few cents. "Big-pockety man no berry
clever, I think," remarked Inchie pensively.

It was on the day of my last visit to his store before sailing for
England, and Inchie was very sad, very earnest, and very anxious to give
me the best possible advice as to what to do in the way of selling when
I arrived at my "store," as he termed it, in England. "When big-pocket
man come to Japan, every merchant know, and all wait for him," said
Inchie, by way of demon