Besides Ito and Sadako Fujinami, the only person present who could talk English at all fluently was that blotchy-faced individual, Mr. Fujinami Takeshi. The young man was in a very hilarious state, and had gathered around him a bevy of geisha with whom he was cracking jokes. From the nature of his gestures they must have been far from decorous.
"Please to sit down, my dear friend," he said to Geoffrey. "Do you like geisha girl?"
"I don't think they like me," said Geoffrey. "I'm too big."
"Oh, no," said the Japanese; "very big, very good. Japanese man too small, no good at all. Why do all geisha love sumotori (professional wrestlers)? Because sumotori very big; but this English gentleman bigger than sumotori. So this girl love you, and this girl, and this girl, and this very pretty girl, I don't know?"
He added a question in Japanese. The geisha giggled, and hid her face behind her sleeve.
"She say, she wish to try first. To try the cake, you eat some? Is that right?"
He repeated his joke in Japanese. The girl wriggled with embarrassment, and finally scuttled away across the room, while the others laughed.
All the geisha now hid their faces among much tittering.
Geoffrey was becoming harassed by this badinage; but he hated to appear a prude, and said:
"I have got a wife, you know, Mr. Fujinami; she is keeping an eye on me."