"And tell me stories!" added June with policy: "tell me 'bout Tomi now."
"Tomi?" said Seki San, smiling. "You going see Tomi very soon, to-morrow, perhaps to-night. Tomi very bad little dog, makes a cross bark at all big peoples, but loves little children. When Tomi very little his nose stick out, so—Japanese think it very ugly for little pug-dog's nose to stick out, so we push it in easy every day. Now Tomi has nice flat nose, but he sneeze all the time so—kerchoo, kerchoo, kerchoo."
June laughed at the familiar story, but suddenly he sobered:
"Say, Seki, I don't think it was very nice to push his nose in; I wouldn't like to have my nose pushed in so I would have to sneeze all the rest of my life."
"Ah! but he must be beautiful! Tomi would not be happy if his nose stuck out when other pug-doggies had nice flat nose. Tomi is very happy, he is grateful."
It was quite dark when they reached their destination; June had been asleep and when he slipped out on the platform he could not remember at all where he was; Seki's mother and her sisters and brothers besides all the relatives far and near had come to welcome her back from America, and quite a little crowd closed in about her, bowing and bowing and chattering away in Japanese.
June stood, rather forlornly, to one side. This time last night Mother had been with him, he could speak to her and touch her, and now—it was a big, strange world he found himself in, and even Seki seemed his Seki no longer.
Suddenly he felt something rub against his leg, and then he heard a queer sound that somehow sounded familiar. Stooping down he discovered a flat-nosed little pug that was kissing his hand just as if it had been brought up in America.
"It's Tomi," cried June in delight, and the pug, recognizing his name, capered more madly still, only stopping long enough to sneeze between the jumps.
Ten minutes later June was sitting beside Seki San in a broad jinrikisha, rushing through the soft night air, down long gay streets full of light and color and laughter, round sharp corners, up steep hills, over bridges where he could look down and see another world of paper lanterns and torches, and always the twinkling legs and the big round hat of the jinrikisha man bobbing steadily along before him.