THE GARDEN OF THE LITTLE TEA-HOUSE (p. 131).
Ah! had it not been for the kind care and skill of those clever little Japs, he would not now be basking in luxury by the fire.
One day I found him lying, to all appearance, dead under the pink camellia-bush in the garden of that little tea-house far away from Tokio in the interior where we were staying. What could be the matter?
‘Poison, evidently,’ suggested one would-be comforter. Had he not barked at that melancholy-looking individual, who had apparently come to this far-off, secluded spot, in search of quiet and repose? No wonder, then, a foreigner’s dog--and such a dog--should be quietly, but surely, condemned!
I was in despair. What was to be done?
‘Consult a city magistrate?’ There was no city, and certainly no magistrate.
‘The village doctor’--brilliant suggestion from our faithful interpreter, Idaka. A rickshaw was summoned, and with many injunctions and--let me confess--a few tears, the poor, unconscious treasure was sent off in Yami’s watchful charge.
Three hours’ waiting, whilst a long line of patient and sick little Japanese went up for consultation to the kind old ‘isha-san’ (doctor), who lived in the little wooden house at the end of the narrow street, with the big tiger-lily before the door. There he sat upon his mat on the floor, clad in his blue kimono, with spectacles and pipe, waiting to receive his patients, with a little brass hibatchi burning away beside him.
Chang’s pulse and tongue having been both examined, Yami was given a small cardboard box containing six minute pills.