atchful eye
on the lodge of the keeper of the gate.

The keeper was very old, and very cross, and lately had acquired a
curious idea that little girls must ask his honorable permission to go
in and out the gate. One day he actually threatened punishment, and
Yuki Chan, in her scorn, invited him to cut off his head with a sword,
that he might save his face. Now the way was clear.

She turned her head and bumped her small body against the weight of
the heavy gates until they swung slightly apart and permitted her to
slip through.

So intent was her purpose to reach the ditch across the street that
she did not see an approaching jinrikisha, and before she knew it she
had been tumbled over and sent rolling to the side of the road. Still
clutching the kitten, she sat up and rubbed the dust from her eyes.

Standing over her was the jinrikisha man, and beside him was his
passenger, a young American boy, whose light hair and blue eyes held
her spell-bound. He was brushing the dust from her kimono, and his
foreign tongue made strange sounds.

"Say, kid," the boy was saying, as he transferred the dust from his
hands to his handkerchief, "glad you're not hurt or got any bones
cracked. Where's your mama, or your papa, or your nurse, to give you a
spanking and keep you off the street?"

As he talked Yuki Chan grew fascinated watching his mouth, and forgot,
for a moment, her direful intention. The cat, again taking advantage
of her relaxed hold, began to tug for freedom, and a lively struggle
ensued.

The boy, looking on, began to laugh, a laugh that began in his eyes,
ran over his face and down into his throat, whence it came again in a
shout of boyish merriment.

Yuki Chan, looking from him to the smiling jinrikisha man, grew
crimson with anger. With a swift movement she ran toward the ditch.

Divining her purpose by the look in her eyes, Dick Merrit went
gallantly to the rescue of the kitten. He was tall for his sixteen
years, and his long strides more than matched the pattering steps of
the slip of a girl who raced before him.

"No, you don't, kiddie," he cried; "your manicured cat is not going
into the ditch, if we have to scrap for it."

Merrit caught Yuki Chan in one arm, and again and again loosened her
fingers from the struggling kitten.

"Iya, Iya!" the child screamed; but Merrit, as determined as she, held
her firmly, and ended by lightly slapping first one little hand and
then the other.

The child, thus