ote 100: All the temples in China and Japan have guests'
apartments, which may be secured for a trifle, either for a long or
short period. It is false to suppose that there is any desecration of
a sacred shrine in the act of using it as a hostelry; it is the custom
of the country.]

"What can this mean?" said one. "The deer surely ought to be roaring."

But, in spite of their waiting, the deer would not roar. At last the
friends got sleepy, and, bored with writing songs and verses, began to
yawn, and gave up twaddling about the woes and troubles of life; and
as they were all silent, one of them, a man fifty years of age,
stopping the circulation of the wine-cup, said--

"Well, certainly, gentlemen, thanks to you, we have spent the evening
in very pleasant conversation. However, although I am enjoying myself
mightily in this way, my people at home must be getting anxious, and
so I begin to think that we ought to leave off drinking."

"Why so?" said the others.

"Well, I'll tell you. You know that my only son is twenty-two years of
age this year, and a troublesome fellow be is, too. When I'm at home,
he lends a hand sulkily enough in the shop: but as soon as he no
longer sees the shadow of me, he hoists sail and is off to some bad
haunt. Although our relations and connections are always preaching to
him, not a word has any more effect that wind blowing into a horse's
ear. When I think that I shall have to leave my property to such a
fellow as that, it makes my heart grow small indeed. Although, thanks
to those to whom I have succeeded, I want for nothing, still, when I
think of my son, I shed tears of blood night and day."

And as he said this with a sigh, a man of some forty-five or forty-six
years said--

"No, no; although you make so much of your misfortunes, your son is
but a little extravagant after all. There's no such great cause for
grief there. I've got a very different story to tell. Of late years my
shopmen, for one reason or another, have been running me into debt,
thinking nothing of a debt of fifty or seventy ounces; and so the
ledgers get all wrong. Just think of that. Here have I been keeping
these fellows ever since they were little children unable to blow
their own noses, and now, as soon as they come to be a little useful
in the shop, they begin running up debts, and are no good whatever to
their master. You see, you only have to spend your money upon your own
son."

Then another gentleman sai