“Any children?”
“No,” said Jane; “I have not.”
The stork on the tortoise, emblem of eternal life, and a “supposed” masterpiece of the great Miochin family of metal-workers, still stood on guard in the fore-front of Danjuro’s wares. It was the same stork that Leslie had seen five years ago—at least, in appearance. In reality it had been sold five or six times during the last five years.
The selling of the thing always brought forth Danjuro’s latent sense of humor, and could Danjuro the actor have seen his namesake at these supreme moments of trade, he would certainly have claimed him as a brother in art.
It would be an American woman, perhaps, in a blue veil, and with a smattering of knowledge picked up from artistic books about Japan. Mac would be the go-between, translating the desires of the female into Japanese for the edification of Dan, who spoke English, by the way, as well as Mac, and even, perhaps, better.
“Sell it!” Danjuro would cry. “I would as soon think of selling my own mother. Tell her Augustness to ask of me anything else. It is a piece of true Miochin, owned by my father, and his father before him. It has always brought my family luck, etc.”
All of which M’Gourley would faithfully translate with the addition:
“He’s the greatest auld scamp in the waurld; he’s only puttin’ up the price. Bide a wee, and let him simmer doon. It is not a true Miochin, but it’s a vara excellent imitation, made, mayhap, by some pupil of the Miochins. Would y’ be wullin’ to pay twanty poonds?”
The Blue-veiled One assenting, Mac and Danjuro would go for each other in Japanese, and after five minutes’ ferocious wrangling, and five minutes more of interpretations, the thing would change hands at twenty-five pounds, to be replaced next day, or, at least, the day after the departure of the Blue-veiled One from Nagasaki, by its twin image. A man at Osaka made them by the gross, and he charged two pounds ten a-piece for them to the trade.