!" answer there was none. Looking within he
could barely distinguish objects through the thick smoke which filled
the house. The last thing the Nipponese would do under such conditions,
would be to throw open doors and panels. This would convert the place at
once to a blazing conflagration. Where was the fire getting its start?
Choking and spluttering Yoemon groped his way through the rooms into the
rear. Wherever the fire was, it was not in the living rooms. The smoke
was accentuated on reaching the kitchen. Here was a smell of burning
rice, of Yoemon's dinner gradually carbonizing under the influence of an
element other than the juices of his round stomach. Looking into the
room, through the thickened haze he saw the flame of the fire
brightening. O'Kame the wife could be made out, on her knees before the
portable furnace. She was blowing a mass of slivers and brushwood into
flame by the aid of a bamboo pipe. It was this stuff, green and partly
wet, which gave out the choking acrid smoke. Yoemon was angered beyond
measure at the sight of his ruined meal and expectations. "Kame! Kame!
What are you doing? Have you gone mad? Ma! Ma! The dinner is being
ruined. You are ill. Kame's head whirls with head-ache. Yoemon will act
as cook. Go to bed--at once." At his peremptory speech the wife looked
up into the face of the husband standing over her. She scowled at him in
a way to cause fear. "Not a _sho[u]_ of rice; not a _mon_. Yoemon would
give freely to a beggar, rather than confer a 'cash' on Iwa. Yoemon
sells me as a street harlot." He started back in fright before the
snarling distorted visage. The wife sprang to her feet. Pash! On his
devoted head descended the hot iron pan with its content of stew. "Ah!
Kame is mad--clean daft." With a wild laugh she seized the pot full of
boiling rice and began to pour it into the drain. When he tried to stop
her, he received the mess full in his bosom--"Mad? Not at all. This Kame
never felt in better spirits. When grass grows in Samoncho[u] we enter
Nirvana. Ha! Ha! Ha! To hasten the happy time!" With a kick she knocked
over the furnace. In an instant the _tatami_ was in a blaze. Yelling
like mad, shouting for help, Yoemon leaped from the house. O'Kame seized
the burning brands in her bare hands, hurling them into this room and
into that. Outstripping the old Yoemon, the younger men of the
neighbours rushed in. The mad woman was soon overcome and carried from
the burning building. Nothi