g so clean you
could eat on the floor anywhere, with the south side all glass and sun,
and the girls sitting on the floor to study on a table about a foot and
a half high; no beds or chairs to litter up the rooms. Then after we
were taken over some of the other rooms, we went back to the dining-room
and had a most exquisite Japanese vegetarian Buddhist lunch served--just
a sample, all on a little plate, but including the sweets for dessert,
five or six things all quite different and elegantly cooked. Also three
kinds of tea.

Politeness is so universal here that when we get back we shall either be
so civil that you won't know us, or else we shall be so irritated that
nobody is sufficiently civil that you won't know us either. Mr. X----
took me in his car and brought me back. When we got to the hall there
were five maids bowing and smiling to get our slippers and hang up our
coats and hats. Just going in or out is like going to a picnic; I think
the maids enjoy this change in their regular work, for they really
smile, as if they were having the time of their lives. If it is
perfunctory and put on, they have me fooled.

Well, I'll spare you all any philosophical reflections this trip.
Besides, I've been too busy having a good time to think of any. They
will probably grow spontaneously in China. I forgot whether I told you
in my last letter that the Minister of the Interior has given me a
monthly and renewable pass first class on the Japanese railways. A
friend here asked him for one for Mamma, too, but he said he was very
sorry, that privilege could not be extended to a woman. So I'm the only
grafter in the family. I haven't had a chance to use it yet, but shall
make one at the first opportunity in order to get the sensation.

TOKYO, Friday, February 28.

I don't get much sightseeing done except in the way of seeing street
sights. I am generally accompanied when I take a walk for exercise and
always taken by some new way. The other evening we went out after dinner
and took a walk to a lively street not far off--booksellers with their
things spread out on the sidewalk or rather road, little lunch wagons,
crowded streets and shops--they have electricity everywhere, and some
geisha girls trotting along with maids to carry their samisens. We went
into a Japanese movie beside rubbering at everything and then went into
a Japanese restaurant. Their eating places here are specialized--this
was a noodle shop, and we tr