It took some time to explain to Okura why this beach, once devoted to the collection of seaweed for manure, should now be dedicated to bathing. But he grasped the main point, that it was a private beach.
“Forgive me,” he said, “I see no Jews.”
“That’s all right,” I answered. “You are studying democracy. There are no Jews here. None allowed.”
“Oh!” he digested the fact. Then his eye brightened. “Ah, you have your geisha girls at the swim-beach. How very charming!”
“No,” I corrected him. “Those are not our geisha girls. That is the ‘shimmy set.’ You know: people who are opposed to the daylight saving act and the prohibition amendment.”
“Oh, I understand. Republicans,” he nodded happily.
As the Servants’ Hour was approaching at Bailey’s Beach, and as I had no good explanation to give of it to Okura, I thought we might walk along by the ocean before lunch. Okura was entranced by the walk, and by the fact that it ran in front of these private houses, free to the public as to the wind. Once or twice we went down below stone walls, with everything above hidden from us, but this was exceptional. Okura thought the walk a fine example of essential democracy.
“And what are those long tubes?” he asked, as we gazed out toward Portugal.
“Sewer pipes,” I said bluntly, looking at the great series of excretory organs that these handsome democratic mansions pushed into the sea.
“Are they considered beautiful?” asked Okura.