we are careful to place ourselves under our
mosquito-net in a more correct style!

One corner, which as a last resort we inspect, inspires me with a
certain amount of apprehension. It is a low, mysterious loft, against
the door of which is stuck, as a thing no longer wanted, a very old,
pious image Kwanon with the thousand arms, and Kwanon with the horses'
head, seated among clouds and flames, both horrible to behold with their
spectral grins.

We open the door, and Chrysantheme starts back uttering a fearful cry. I
should have thought the robbers were there, had I not seen a little gray
creature, rapid and noiseless, rush by her and disappear; a young rat
that had been eating rice on the top of a shelf, and, in its alarm, had
dashed in her face.

CHAPTER XLVIII. UNUSUAL HOSPITALITY

September 16th.

Yves has let fall his silver whistle in the ocean, the whistle so
absolutely indispensable for the manoeuvres; and we search the town all
day long, followed by Chrysantheme and Mesdemoiselles La Neige and La
Lune, her sisters, in the endeavor to find another.

It is, however, very difficult to find such a thing in Nagasaki; above
all, very difficult to explain in Japanese what is a sailor's whistle
of the traditional shape, curved, and with a little ball at the end to
modulate the trills and the various sounds of official orders. For
three hours we are sent from shop to shop; at each one they pretend to
understand perfectly what is wanted and trace on tissue-paper, with a
paint-brush, the addresses of the shops where we shall without fail meet
with what we require. Away we go, full of hope, only to encounter some
fresh mystification, till our breathless djins get quite bewildered.

They understand admirably that we want a thing that will make a noise,
music, in short; thereupon they offer us instruments of every, and
of the most unexpected, shape--squeakers for Punch-and-Judy voices,
dog-whistles, trumpets. Each time it is something more and more absurd,
so that at last we are overcome with uncontrollable fits of laughter.
Last of all, an aged Japanese optician, who assumes a most knowing
air, a look of sublime wisdom, goes off to forage in his back shop, and
brings to light a steam fog-horn, a relict from some wrecked steamer.

After dinner, the chief event of the evening is a deluge of rain, which
takes us by surprise as we leave the teahouses, on our return from our
fashionable stroll. It so happened that