“I believe more than twenty days have elapsed since your arrival here,” said he; “how have you been employing yourself in the interval?”
“In religious meditation and in composing poems,” I replied.
“What is your court rank and what office do you hold in Japan?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I answered.
But he continued: “Don’t try to make a secret of those things; do you think we can form no idea of our own about you? It will be better for you to tell me all.”
“Sir, I am a Buḍḍhist priest, and I possess no rank, nor order, nor any office under the Japanese or any other Government for that matter.”
“Oh! come, Mr. Kawaguchi; how do you happen to visit Tibet and Nepāl, in spite of the great expense involved?”
“I am absolutely free from all official connexions: I went to Tibet and came to your country with the one sole object of completing my Buḍḍhist study.”