The long, low house, white as snow and surrounded by a narrow veranda, faced west, and was surrounded by a garden recalling the gardens of Dai Nichi Do: a garden filled with the music of fountains and the poetry of birds.
Alas! on the day of his garden-party Mr. Kamamura, seized with the spirit of modernity and the savagery of civilization, not content with the music of heaven, and prompted, no doubt, by the devil, had hired a brass band and placed it in a little kiosk, with orders to bray Strauss in the face of Nature from three o’clock till dusk.
There were many guests, and the gardens soon presented an animated appearance. Many of the ladles had retained the national dress, and marvelous were the fabrics to be seen in the form of the obi or flowing loose in the graceful kimono.
Some of the guests surrounded a pair of jugglers, two terrible men dressed in red, who fenced with and transfixed one another with long swords, swallowed fire, and belched it like dragons.
In another corner of the grounds fireworks were whizzing and cracking, filling the clear air above with a thin blue haze through which, just as Jane and Leslie entered the grounds, there rose a wonderful fire balloon made of colored paper and fashioned in the form of a turkey cock.
“It’s like a party in the lunatic asylum,” whispered Jane, as they threaded the maze of guests in search of their host and hostess. “And, Dick, you do look perfectly awful in that panama amongst all these men in tall hats—I mean they look awful beside you, but they are de rigueur; and it’s better to be de rigueur and look frightful, than to be not de rigueur and look nice. How d’y’ do?” and Jane extended her arm, pump-handle fashion, to the little gentleman with the sallow face to whom Leslie was introducing her.
“Much pleasure, much pleasure,” said Mr. Kamamura, whose English was mixed and limited, and who, like Kiku San, had not completely mastered the letter “l.” “Will the honorable rady so make equal health Nagysaki (the proper way to pronounce Nagasaki) you stay? So good. Over there Mrs. Kamamura; you make known;” and Mr. Kamamura presenting his arm Jane was led away through the crowd like some tall and graceful frigate threading a maze of painted cock-boats.
Leslie, left to himself, turned with a gloomy expression of countenance to where the jugglers were dislocating each other’s necks. He did not see them; he was looking out of the side of his eyes at Jane.
She had been led across one of the willow-pattern bridges, and he could see her now standing at one of the kiosks, a tea-cup in her hand. She was talking to Mr. Kamamura and a little lady in European dress—Mrs. Kamamura, probably.
What could they be talking about? Conversation, probably, sufficient to dislocate the gravity of a Socrates.