ment exercises of Waseda
University." Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather. I
don't suppose I should have known what was happening at all unless I
could have figured it out from the Chrysanthemums on the carriage doors.
I said to her: "How is he coming, in an automobile? How long are we to
stand here?" I had visions of the stories about the streets being
cleared, and the doors shut for some hours while white sand was
sprinkled over the car tracks, and all the rest. "No," she said, "just a
little time." I saw by now that I was not likely to have much gossip
poured out to me about the Emperor, so I just fixed a nice little thing
about three years old in front of me and then we waited with the rest of
the school children. Soon the procession came, first a body of horse in
plain khaki uniforms, then one very Japanese-looking man alone on the
back seat in one of the light victorias, very clean and shiny, with the
Chrysanthemums on the door. He was dressed in a khaki wool uniform just
like the rest of the army with a cap on his head. Then came some other
shiny, light little victorias with two horses, all just alike. I
rubbered my best and I had a very good look at the one little man alone
in the middle of the seat, and sitting up and looking straight ahead of
him pleasantly. In the midst of the passing I asked the companion with
me, "Which is the Emperor?" and she answered "The one in the first
carriage," and still there was that quiet of perfect breeding; and by
and by all the nice little soldiers on horseback passed, and after I had
stood a little longer on the edge of my bridge I started our little
procession moving towards the car. The Emperor had gone the opposite
way. After a little I said: "I did not know the Emperor went to
commencements and things like that," and I chattered on, and then my
companion said in her slow, proper, calm tone: "That is my first
experience to see the Emperor, too." And I said "Is that so?" and asked
some more questions, still wondering that no one had called out a Banzai
nor made a sound, and it is not till to-day that I learned that all the
people were standing with their eyes cast down to the ground, and that I
was the only one who looked at the Emperor, and their reverence was so
great that that was the reason I had not heard them breathe. For another
thing, Waseda is the liberal university and private, so I wondered still
till I learned then that the Emperor was going to the