hideous
lattice-girder arrangement--and part of a fourth. We were on an island
and owned a watergate if we wanted to take a boat.

_Apropos_ of water, be pleased to listen to a Shocking Story. It is
written in all the books that the Japanese though cleanly are somewhat
casual in their customs. They bathe often with nothing on and together.
This notion my experience of the country, gathered in the seclusion of
the Oriental at Kobe, made me scoff at. I demanded a tub at Juter's. The
infinitesimal man led me down verandahs and upstairs to a beautiful
bath-house full of hot and cold water and fitted with cabinet-work,
somewhere in a lonely out-gallery. There was naturally no bolt to the
door any more than there would be a bolt to a dining-room. Had I been
sheltered by the walls of a big Europe bath, I should not have cared,
but I was preparing to wash when a pretty maiden opened the door, and
indicated that she also would tub in the deep, sunken Japanese bath at
my side. When one is dressed only in one's virtue and a pair of
spectacles it is difficult to shut the door in the face of a girl. She
gathered that I was not happy, and withdrew giggling, while I thanked
heaven, blushing profusely the while, that I had been brought up in a
society which unfits a man to bathe _a deux_. Even an experience of the
Paddington Swimming Baths would have helped me; but coming straight from
India Lady Godiva was a ballet-girl in sentiment compared to this
Actaeon.

It rained monsoonishly, and the Professor discovered a castle which he
needs must see. "It's Osaka Castle," he said, "and it has been fought
over for hundreds of years. Come along."

"I've seen castles in India. Raighur, Jodhpur--all sorts of places.
Let's have some more boiled salmon. It's good in this station."

"Pig," said the Professor.

We threaded our way over the four thousand and fifty-two canals, etc.,
where the little children played with the swiftly running water, and
never a mother said "don't," till our 'rickshaw stopped outside a fort
ditch thirty feet deep, and faced with gigantic granite slabs. On the
far side uprose the walls of a fort. But such a fort! Fifty feet was the
height of the wall, and never a pinch of mortar in the whole. Nor was
the face perpendicular, but curved like the ram of a man-of-war. They
know the curve in China, and I have seen French artists, introduce it
into books describing a devil-besieged city of Tartary. Possibly
everybody else