don't know if you have more, anyway, let us
take two and then they can follow us if they like, and the others will
go away. Accordingly we give orders to Yosoji, who bows, only
half-satisfied, and interprets our orders. The plan works, the other men
slink off, and the two selected ones follow us limply at a foot's pace.

What I am really making for is a little print shop I saw as we passed
along here this morning, with a number of Japanese drawings in the
window. They are so queer, so well done, and yet so conventional that
they have a charm of their own. Here it is! Look at that extraordinary
picture of the great fish breaking through a hole in the blocks of ice!
The ice _looks_ cold, it is very well done, but the little bits of spray
loop up round the fish in a stiff frill of a regular pattern. Then there
is that one of the sea. It gives one a tremendous idea of a heavy
lowering storm with the great indigo waves curling over that doomed
boat, yet the edge of every wave has a sort of lace frill on it exactly
alike! I must have those to take home; they won't take up any room.

As we enter the Jap lady who is selling the prints gives a long hiss.
She bows profoundly, and so do we. They won't know us when we get home!

"But why did she hiss?" you ask Yosoji. He says it is a sign of respect.
Oh! I thought they were nervous! How funny! As long as they don't expect
me to do it back again--I can manage the bowing when there is no one
there but you to see, but if I tried to hiss I should break down in the
middle! I take out my purse to pay for the print. The money here is
confusing, because there are yen and sen. A yen is equal to two
shillings and a halfpenny, and a sen is only the hundredth part of a
yen, or about a farthing. In order to reckon the change the old lady
takes up a frame with beads strung across it on wires; I believe it's
called an abacus, and they use them in kindergarten schools to teach
children to count. She must be an ignorant old dame, and yet she looks
wholly respectable. I wonder what Yosoji thinks of it. When we look at
him he is quite demure and solemn and doesn't seem to notice anything
odd.

Coming out of the shop we find the dearest trio of children gazing at
us. Of all the sights in Japan the children are the most fascinating.
They are so funnily dressed, like the odd little Jap dolls English
children buy. These three are clad very magnificently in kimonos of silk
crape, very soft, and brillia