pon us. It is difficult to realise that we are
more entertaining to them than the gentleman who is disrobing himself
with ineffable dignity in public, is to us.

He has now slipped on the kimono over his remaining garments, there is a
little twist, and a slight, a very slight struggle, and in some
miraculous way the rest of his European outfit glides off underneath the
kimono, neatly folded. It is like a conjuring trick! Last of all come
off the boots also, and with his stockinged feet tucked up under him he
sits transformed into the Complete Jap. Judging from the lack of
interest taken in the performance by his fellow-countrymen, it must be
quite a usual thing to undress in trains.

Having finished his task the gentleman on the seat turns to us and asks
innumerable questions. Where have we come from? Where are we going to?
How do we like Japan? Is it not a very poor, mean country compared with
the glorious and august land we belong to? All this is interpreted by
Yosoji, who no doubt puts our answers into the flowery language Japanese
courtesy demands; for instance, when I say that I like Japan very much,
I am sure, from the breathless sentence that follows, that he is saying
that the strangers think the honourable country of Japan far more
beautiful and wonderful than their own poor land. The man opposite does
not for a moment think really that England is to be compared with Japan,
but in Japan people are taught to talk like that, and must often think
us very rude and abrupt.

It is not a long journey, and after an hour or so of passing through
pretty, hilly country, with many bushy pine trees dotted about, we stop
at a station which Yosoji says is our destination. It is a good thing we
have Yosoji with us, for certainly we could never have discovered the
name of the station for ourselves. We see a long scroll covered with
Chinese characters, and other smaller scrolls ornamented in the same
way, these are, of course, the name of the station and the inscriptions
on various waiting-rooms, but they leave us none the wiser. I ask Yosoji
how any European travelling alone could discover where he had got to,
and he smilingly points out a board at the extreme end of the station
with some of our own lettering on it. No one could possibly see it from
the incoming train.

We still feel absurdly big as we get out of the little train on its
little narrow gauge line and wait while Yosoji captures our luggage from
the van. It is