he foreground a
little policeman in badly fitting Europe clothes drinking tea from blue
and white china on a black lacquered stand. Fleecy white clouds above
and a cold wind up the street," I said, summarising hastily.

"Mine is a little different. A Japanese boy in a flat-headed German cap
and baggy Eton jacket; a King taken out of a toy-shop, a railway taken
out of a toy-shop, hundreds of little Noah's Ark trees and fields made
of green-painted wood. The whole neatly packed in a camphor-wood box
with an explanatory book called the Constitution--price twenty cents."

"You looked on the darker side of things. But what's the good of writing
impressions? Every man has to get his own at first hand. Suppose I give
an itinerary of what we saw?"

"You couldn't do it," said the Professor, blandly. "Besides, by the
time the next Anglo-Indian comes this way there will be a hundred more
miles of railway and all the local arrangements will have changed. Write
that a man should come to Japan without any plans. The guide-books will
tell him a little, and the men he meets will tell him ten times more.
Let him get first a good guide at Kobe, and the rest will come easily
enough. An itinerary is only a fresh manifestation of that unbridled
egoism which--"

"I shall write that a man can do himself well from Calcutta to Yokohama,
stopping at Rangoon, Moulmein, Penang, Singapur, Hong-Kong, Canton, and
taking a month in Japan, for about sixty pounds--rather less than more.
But if he begins to buy curios, that man is lost. Five hundred rupees
cover his month in Japan and allow him every luxury. Above all, he
should bring with him thousands of cheroots--enough to serve him till he
reaches 'Frisco. Singapur is the last place on the line where you can
buy Burmas. Beyond that point wicked men sell Manila cigars with fancy
names for ten, and Havanas for thirty-five, cents. No one inspects your
boxes till you reach 'Frisco. Bring, therefore, at least one thousand
cheroots."

"Do you know, it seems to me you have a very queer sense of proportion?"

And that was the last word the Professor spoke on Japanese soil.

No. XXII

SHOWS HOW I CAME TO AMERICA BEFORE MY TIME AND WAS MUCH SHAKEN IN BODY
AND SOUL.

"Then spoke der Captain Stossenheim
Who had theories of God,
'Oh, Breitmann, this is judgment on
Der ways dot you have trod.
You only lifs to enjoy yourself
While you yourself agree
Dot self-developme