ards, which are printed on the back with the name of Uyeno, the
fashionable photographer in Nagasaki--the little creatures fit only to
figure daintily on painted fans, who have striven to assume a dignified
attitude when once their necks have been placed in the head-rest, and
they have been told: "Now, don't move."

It would really amuse me to read the letters of my mousme's friends--and
above all her replies!

CHAPTER XXIX

SUDDEN SHOWERS

August 10th.

It rained this evening heavily, and the night was close and dark. About
ten o'clock, on our return from one of the fashionable tea-houses we
frequent, we arrived--Yves, Chrysantheme and I--at the familiar angle of
the principal street, the turn where we must take leave of the lights and
noises of the town, to climb up the dark steps and steep paths that lead
to our dwelling at Diou-djen-dji.

But before beginning our ascent, we must first buy lanterns from an old
tradeswoman called Madame Tres-Propre, whose regular customers we are. It
is amazing what a quantity of these paper lanterns we consume. They are
invariably decorated in the same way, with painted nightmoths or bats;
fastened to the ceiling at the farther end of the shop, they hang in
enormous clusters, and the old woman, seeing us arrive, gets upon a table
to take them down. Gray or red are our usual choice; Madame Tres-Propre
knows our preferences and leaves the green or blue lanterns aside. But it
is always hard work to unhook one, on account of the little short sticks
by which they are held, and the strings with which they are tied getting
entangled together. In an exaggerated pantomime, Madame Tres-Propre
expresses her despair at wasting so much of our valuable time: oh! if it
only depended on her personal efforts! but ah! the natural perversity of
inanimate things which have no consideration for human dignity! With
monkeyish antics, she even deems it her duty to threaten the lanterns and
shake her fist at these inextricably tangled strings which have the
presumption to delay us.

It is all very well, but we know this manoeuvre by heart; and if the old
lady loses patience, so do we. Chrysantheme, who is half asleep, is
seized with a fit of kitten-like yawning which she does not even trouble
to hide behind her hand, and which appears to be endless. She pulls a
very long face at the thought of the steep hill we must struggle up
tonight through the pelting rain.

I have the same feeling, and a