ning him.

Professor Ume, of the Imperial University, was one. In her
"Reminiscences" Mrs. Hearn says that an hour or two before he died Hearn
had told her to have recourse to Professor Ume in any difficulty, and I
thought he might by chance throw some light on Hearn's last hours, and
any dispositions of property he might have made on behalf of his widow
and children.

A very exquisite house was the professor's, with its grey panels and
cedar-wood battens, its cream-coloured mats, its embroidered screens,
and azaleas in amber-crackled pots. For half-an-hour I waited lying on a
_zabuton_ (I had not yet learnt to kneel Japanese fashion), the intense
silence only broken by the gentle pushing backwards and forwards, at
intervals, of the screen that separated the two rooms, and the entrance
of a little maid bringing tiny cups of green tea with profuse curtseys
and bows. When the gentleman of the house did appear, he behaved in a
manner so profoundly obsequious that I, despite a slight feeling of
irritation at the time I had been kept waiting, and the vileness of the
tea of which I had been partaking, grovelled in self-abasement. The
moment I attempted, however, to touch upon the subject of Hearn, it was
as if a drawer with a secret spring had been shut. The Japanese are too
courteous to change a subject abruptly; they slip round it with a
dexterity that is surprising. When I endeavoured to ascertain what
communication Hearn had held with him, and if he had named executors and
left a will--Koizumi San was fond of smoking and sometimes honoured his
contemptible abode to smoke a pipe--further than that he knew nothing.
The same experience met me at the Imperial University (Teikoko Daigaku),
where I was audacious enough to penetrate into the sanctum where the
heads of the college congregated. Needless to say I was there received
also with studied civility, but an impenetrable reserve that was
distinctly awe-inspiring. A slim youth was summoned and told to conduct
me into the university garden, to see the lake, said to be Hearn's
favourite haunt between lecture hours. There was no undue haste
exhibited, but you felt that the endeavour to obtain information about
the former English professor at the university was not viewed with any
sort of favour by his colleagues.

In the hotel were tourists of various nationalities, half of whom spent
their time laughing at the "odd little Japs," the rest were divided
between Murray and Baed