At night we set watch again, but nothing happened. It wasn’t till nearly noon next day when something did happen. I was sitting on the porch at the time with Mark Tidd. Down the road a couple of hundred yards we saw a man coming. He was a little man, and even at that distance we saw he walked sort of jaunty, swinging his shoulders and switching off leaves with a slender cane. He looked all dressed up.
When he got closer we saw he was all dressed up. Dressed up? Wow! I should say he was. He was a regular dude. Sticking in one eye was one of those funny spectacle things like Englishmen wear in funny pictures. There was just one glass to it, and it was hitched to a black ribbon. On his head was a straw hat, one of those kind that cost a lot of money and come from some place across the Pacific Ocean—a Bankok, they call them, I guess. His clothes were light gray and they fitted him like they had been made on purpose. On his feet he wore spats—at least that’s what Mark Tidd said they were. I never saw any such idiotic things before. You’ve seen a dicky for a shirt, haven’t you? A sort of false front? Well, spats are dickies for shoes.
The man came on without showing a sign that he saw us. His face was screwed kind of sideways to hold that single glass in his eye, and he appeared to be pretty well pleased with himself. He was a Jap!
“Mark,” says I, “it’s him!”
“Yes,” says he, “The One Who Will Come has g-g-got here.”
We waited without making a move till he got right up to us. Then he took off his hat and made a bow like d’Artagnan in the Three Musketeers—a regular old ground-sweeper.
“To you good morning,” says he, kind of mincing his words like a girl with half a college education that took lessons on the violin and elocution.
“Good morning,” we says right back at him.
“You have some beautiful places to live at,” says he, as polite as a hungry cat miawing around the dinner-table.
“There’s f-f-folks might disagree with you,” says Mark, “but we feel pretty well suited.”