mountain lion to inspect a piece of beautiful tapestry in the process of
weaving.

However tactfully I led up to the subject he walked around it without
touching it. To him she was not. Reconciliation was afar off. I said
good-by and left. It was this and the speech I had heard in the
afternoon that occupied my mind as I wended my way home.

Of course the country must go forward; but it was a pity that, even if
progress were not compatible with tradition, it could not be tempered
with beauty. Why must the youth of the land adopt those hideous
imitations of foreign clothes? The flower-like children wear on their
heads the grotesque combinations of muslin and chicken feathers they
called hats? There are miles of ancient moats around the city, filled
with lotus, the great pink-and-white blossoms giving joy to the eye as
its roots gave food for the body. Slowly these stretches of loveliness
were being turned into dreary levels of sand for the roadbed of a
trolley. Even now the quiet of the city was broken by the clang of the
street-car gong. I was taking my first ride that day.

With Kishimoto San's plea for progress of the right kind still ringing
in my ears, my eyes fell upon some of the rules for the conduct of the
passengers, printed in large type, and hung upon the front door of the
car:

"Please do not stick your knees or your elbows out of the windows."

"Fat people must ride on the platform."

"Soiled coolies must take a bath before entering."

An advertisement in English emphasized the talk of the afternoon:
"Invaluable most fragrant and nice pills, especially for sudden illness.
For refreshing drooping minds and regulating disordered spirits,
whooping cough and helping reconvalescents to progress."

The force of Kishimoto's appeal was strong upon me.

I alighted at my street and began the climb that led to my house.
Halfway up a picture-book tea-house offered hospitality; in its
miniature garden I paused to rest and faced the sea in all its evening
beauty. Happily the glory of the skies and the tender loveliness of the
hills still belonged to their Maker, untouched by commercialism.

The golden track of the setting sun streamed across the mountain tops
and turned to fiery red a feathery shock of distant clouds. High and
clear came the note of a wild goose as he called to his mate on their
homeward flight. In the city below a thousand lights danced and beckoned
through the soft velvet shadows of coming