XXIV
THE LAND OF THE BRAVE
So, presently, they were in America. On the way over they were quite happy once more.
"For there are no etas in America," said Hoshiko.
But there was the Japan Society in America, which turned its back on them, etas, whereby they were left in a strange land, with only a strange language and half pay, all of which would have been beggarly enough.
However, that is how it happened that Moncure Jones, who had made a sudden fortune and wanted a Japanese butler, became the happy master of Arisuga. He had found them in one of his "raids" upon southern New York, where they had a little room and were starving and studying the language.
Arisuga told his small wife one day that the thing called divorce was going on in the Jones household and in the courts. They laughed together about it. Divorce in America meant something very different from what it did in their country. It appeared that it had been preceded by tremendous quarrels in the house of Jones, of which Arisuga was a witness, and an amazed one. For Mrs. Jones had rather the better of the quarrelling.
"It is not certain that the divorce will be granted by the judges," said Arisuga.
"Do they make people live together who do not wish to?" asked his wife.
"So it seems," laughed Shijiro.