runner
justified his reputation of speaking English; he began by counting up
to fifty, looking over his shoulder for approval, and expecting to be
prompted when his memory failed. He received Percival's peremptory
order to be silent with an uncomprehending smile and a glib recitation
of the Twenty-third Psalm. He was an unusually tall coolie, and the
jinrikisha-shafts resting in his hands were a foot higher than they
ought to be, throwing his passenger at a most awkward angle. Before Otsu
was reached a sudden rainstorm came on, and Percival was made yet more
uncomfortable by having the hood of the jinrikisha put up, and a piece
of stiff oilcloth tucked about him.

By the time he rattled into the courtyard of the small Japanese inn, he
was cramped and cold and very cross. Even the voluble welcome of the
proprietor and the four girls, who received him on their knees, failed
to revive his spirits. It was going to be deuced awkward explaining his
sudden appearance to the Weston party. There might even be jokes at his
expense. He decided to take a room and not make his appearance unless
everything seemed propitious.

An animated discussion was in progress between Sanno and the innkeeper,
the import of which Sanno explained with much difficulty. Owing to the
autumn festival of the imperial ancestors, the inn was quite full, but
hospitality could not he refused to so distinguished a foreign guest.

"Foreign bedstead is not," concluded Sanno; "foreign food is not; hot
bath is."

"I sha'n't want a bed, and I sha'n't want a bath," said Percival, then,
seeing that a diminutive maiden was unloosing his shoes, he added
petulantly: "My boots are quite dry. Tell her to go away."

But Sanno was getting his jinrikisha under cover, and Percival had to
submit to the gentle, but firm, determination of the _nesan_. She
was small and demure, but her attitude towards him was that of a nurse
towards a refractory child. She conducted him, with much sliding of
screens, through several compartments, to a room at the back of the
house that opened out on a tiny balcony overhanging a noisy stream.

Percival, standing in his stockinged feet on the soft mats, looked about
him. The room was devoid of furniture, its only decoration being a vase
of carefully arranged flowers in an alcove, and a queer kakemono that
hung on an ivory stick. As he was inspecting the latter, the nesan again
approached him.

This time she seemed to have designs upon h