We S.O.S.'d Yokohama for four hours with that saki house telephone
"But the son's wife, a most comely little woman, caught the drift of our request, and by one o'clock had prepared us a dainty Japanese lunch, and invited us to it. We both agreed that we'd never had a better time in our lives, getting away with a meal and affording amusement to our hosts as we labored, first with chop-sticks and finally fell back to fingers. We knew we'd be in bad if we offered to pay for that meal, and still we had ordered it. We'd be cheap skates not to offer to pay for what we had ordered, and we'd be barbarians if we offered to pay. We compromised by asking how much we owed, and got the answer we expected, 'No charge.'
"By two o'clock an automobile from Yokohama garage hove in sight with a load of mechanics, and by five o'clock our machine was in commission.
"After we had finished that meal, about two o'clock, the proprietor of the establishment showed up. He had been absent from home up to that time. He was a high-class individual. He added his welcome to that of the rest of the family's to the foreigners within his gates—he also made us feel as if the home was ours. While the work of repair to the damaged car was progressing we worked that dictionary to the limit. We learned the Japanese language and got the household proficient in English.
"During the afternoon the proprietor's mother came in for a call, and it was worth a trip across the Pacific to watch the greeting between the grandmother and her grandson, the twenty-six-year-old chap. The old lady was beautifully dressed. She got down on her hands and knees, her palms flat on the matted floor. Grandson did the same. For about a minute they posed like two fighting cocks ready for a bout.
"Then grandma's forehead went down on the matting, so did grandson's.
"They stayed in that position so long I was afraid the old lady had fainted and was for picking her up, but just then she raised her head, peeked out of the tail of her eye at grandson, whose head raised a little, then down to the matting went her head again, followed by grandson. Up with their heads and down to the matting again, playing peek-a-boo to catch each other at it; several times they went through those motions, until justice, or something else, was satisfied; then the old lady got up and shuffled away, and grandson got up and told us that she was his grandmother, and eighty-two years old.
"That surely was some bow.
"The house was as clean as a hound's tooth, and they showed us through kitchen, bedrooms, and living rooms, and the little garden in the rear.