"Have you heard the news?" one of the secretaries asked one morning.
"Why, no—what is it?" I inquired.
"Perhaps you may remember that the Embassy dog barked so much that our neighbours complained and we had to give him away. Some geishas took him, but he still came back to visit us."
"Yes," I interrupted, "he comes back at night—I've heard him!"
"He did come back—but alas! he never will again. That is the news—we found him dead in the garden this morning. His funeral procession has just gone down the street, the geishas following the corpse in their 'rickshas."
"A dog's funeral! How funny!"
"Not so funny as something that happened not very long ago, when the local veterinary died," the Secretary assured me; "our Embassy dog was invited to attend his funeral. Of course we sent him, and he rode in state in the first 'ricksha behind the body, followed by other dogs of lesser rank, each riding in its master's carriage."
Occasionally there would be the tremor of an earthquake. But most of the shocks are slight—so slight that one doesn't often feel them. Having been born and brought up on made land in the Back Bay of Boston, where every team shakes the house, I did not notice one all the time I was in Tokyo. I had to take the tremors on hearsay.
Tokyo is considered cold in winter. It has a chill wind, but not so bad as the east wind in Boston. The climate might, perhaps, compare with Washington, but as the houses are so lightly built, and the people live upon the floor with little heat, the Japanese suffer a great deal from the cold. It had always been thought too severe in Tokyo for the Emperor, who as Crown Prince used to go to the seashore during the winter months, but this year, having become Emperor on the death of his father, he was obliged to stay in town. Miss Hyde has perhaps the most attractive house and garden that I saw in Tokyo. The garden was small, but you entered under a torii gate, and found a bronze Buddha calmly sitting beneath a tree. Indoors, Miss Hyde had decorated some of the shoji, the sliding screens, with pretty, laughing Japanese children. Her wood cuts of these children, by the way, are enchanting. The day we lunched with her the table was charmingly arranged, with little dolls among the flowers carrying lighted egg-shell lanterns.