ues M. Kangourou, "it can be arranged
just as well with this one; she is not married either, Monsieur!"

She is not married! Then why didn't the idiot propose her to me at once
instead of the other, for whom I have a feeling of the greatest pity,
poor little soul, with her pearl-gray dress, her sprig of flowers, her
now sad and mortified expression, and her eyes which twinkle like those
of a child about to cry.

"It can be arranged, Monsieur!" repeats Kangourou again, who at this
moment appears to me a go-between of the lowest type, a rascal of the
meanest kind.

Only, he adds, we, Yves and I, are in the way during the negotiations.
And, while Mademoiselle Chrysantheme remains with her eyelids
lowered, as befits the occasion, while the various families, on whose
countenances may be read every degree of astonishment, every phase of
expectation, remain seated in a circle on my white mats, he sends us
two into the veranda, and we gaze down into the depths below us, upon
a misty and vague Nagasaki, a Nagasaki melting into a blue haze of
darkness.

Then ensue long discourses in Japanese, arguments without end. M.
Kangourou, who is laundryman and low scamp in French only, has returned
for these discussions to the long formulas of his country. From time to
time I express impatience, I ask this worthy creature, whom I am less
and less able to consider in a serious light:

"Come now, tell us frankly, Kangourou, are we any nearer coming to some
arrangement? Is all this ever going to end?"

"In a moment, Monsieur, in a moment;" and he resumes his air of
political economist seriously debating social problems.

Well, one must submit to the slowness of this people. And, while the
darkness falls like a veil over the Japanese town, I have leisure to
reflect, with as much melancholy as I please, upon the bargain that is
being concluded behind me.

Night has closed in; it has been necessary to light the lamps.

It is ten o'clock when all is finally settled, and M. Kangourou comes to
tell me:

"All is arranged, Monsieur: her parents will give her up for twenty
dollars a month--the same price as Mademoiselle Jasmin."

On hearing this, I am possessed suddenly with extreme vexation that
I should have made up my mind so quickly to link myself in ever so
fleeting and transient a manner with this little creature, and dwell
with her in this isolated house.

We return to the room; she is the centre of the circle and seated; and
th