uder and faster to the foreigner
who cannot fully understand her dialect or allusions--when a new
character appears upon the scene.

A very jolly, matronly-looking woman, evidently the landlady, pulls
aside one of the sliding paper doors, and bowing low on her hands and
knees, smiles cavernously with her jet-black teeth, which, like all
correct and cleanly women in Japan, she dyes on alternate days. She
asks concerning dinner, and whether it is the honorable wish of the
visitor to eat Japanese food. The answer being affirmative, both
matron and maiden disappear to prepare the meal, evidently thinking it
a fine joke. No such thing as a common dining-room exists in Japanese
hotels. Caste has hitherto been too strictly observed to allow of such
an idea. Every guest eats in his own room, sitting on his calves and
heels. The preparations are simple, though of course I speak now of
every-day life.

Miss Peach-blossom appears, bearing in her hand a table four inches
high, one foot square, and handsomely lacquered red and black. Behind
her comes a young girl carrying a rice-box and plate of fish. Most
gracefully she sets it down with the apology, "I have kept you long
waiting," and the invitation, "Please take up."

On the table are four covered bowls, two very small dishes containing
pickles and soy, and a little paper bag in which is a pair of
chopsticks. The place of each article is foreordained by gastronomic
etiquette, and rigidly observed. In the first bowl is soup, in the
second a boiled mixture consisting of leeks, mushrooms, lotus-root
and a kind of sea-weed. In a third are boiled buckwheat cakes or
dumplings, and _tofu_ or bean-curd. In the porcelain cup is rice. In
an oblong dish, brought in during the meal, is a broiled fish in soy.
Lifting off the covers and adjusting my chopsticks deftly, I begin.
The bowl of rice is first attacked, and quickly finished. The
attendant damsel proffers her lacquered waiter, and uncovering the
steaming tub of rice paddles out another cupful. It is etiquette to
dispose of unlimited cups of rice and soup, but a deadly breach of
good manners to ask to have the other two bowls replenished. Of course
at the hotels whatever the larder affords can be ordered. Boiled eggs,
cracked and peeled before you by the tapering fingers of the damsels,
are considered choice articles of food. Raw fish, thinly sliced and
eaten with radish, sauce, ginger sprouts, etc., is highly enjoyed by
the Japanes