That night the Areopagus convened itself again, and M’Gourley explained matters. It was necessary that he and his honorable friend should go to Nagasaki, and they proposed that the Lost One should be left behind at the Tea House of the Tortoise, to be kept till called for, warehoused, in short, and, of course, paid for accordingly. Was Madame Ranunculus willing?
Most willing.
A sum of money would be placed in the landlord’s hands as guarantee.
Oh, that was perfectly unnecessary!
Still, the Hon. Leslie wished it.
Accordingly, a sum equivalent almost to the value of the Tea House of the Tortoise, was placed in the landlord’s hands, who placed it in numerous folds of rice paper, and handed it to his wife, who engulfed it in her kimono.
These matters having been satisfactorily settled, Campanula was led off to bed and dinner was served.
Next morning at eight o’clock two rikshas arrived to take the travelers to the station. The whole of the “Tortoise” folk, Hedgehog San included, came to the front of the house. The cry, “Sayonara—come again quickly,” followed them as they swept round the pond and out at the gate, a cry made up of the landlord’s croaking basso, the sweet voices of the Mousmés, and Campanula’s childish treble.
“She seemed sorrier to part with old Mac than me,” thought Leslie as they span along. “Ugh!” He turned his head in disgust from an English tourist in tweeds, who was engaged in kodaking a temple.
In the train, with a pipe in his mouth and M’Gourley opposite to him, he felt as if he had just stepped out of a dream; a dream of sun and splendor, a dream in which figured camellia trees twenty feet high, and the form of the Lost One standing amidst the glory of crimson azaleas.